The Adorable Optimism of the IPCC - <AUTHOR> https://www.rifters.com/crawl/?p=8433 <comment><AUTHOR> Looks like it was taken down from the front page. Any reason for that?

Edit: looks like it was just because the score, not any shadowbanning. The article can be really abrasive for many and being in denial about the topic of climate change and potential upcoming societal collapse is the easier way.

I still hope that it's not the case with the submission.

Join us over at r/collapse, interesting discussion is happening about this topics there.

</comment><comment><USER2> I really think scientists should speak up more about the situation. They'll be accused of "alarmism" by right wing media in any case. But they should be much more political and emphatic on necessity of swift action. Because what we've been doing so far isn't working. Emissions aren't being cut. We're still going almost full speed to a very bleak natural future.

In fact I think it's a duty of anyone with a basic scientific education to try and inform about the basic scary consequences (highlighted in this article) and propagate this information to their vicinity. Most people I talk to have no idea of the breadth of consequences. And then the second step is using democracy and voting specifically on candidates that are fighting to address the issue -- not only on national level but whatever level you can get (county,city,state).

Finally if massive change isn't detected in a few years (I'm skeptical) the higher organizations (UN, UNSC, etc.) need to start aggressively punishing emissions on a global level. Something like a mandatory carbon tax on every country seems like a good start.

<comment><USER3> I wrote this four years ago and I think it still rings true:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/1xjpfg/health_of_ocea...](https://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/1xjpfg/health_of_oceans_declining_fast_warming/cfc94tj)

We're in a double-bind in that the only thing that we can use as a stick to beat defectors over the head with is the same stick that defectors are beaten over the head for having in the first place.

The sad state that I think many longterm observers have arrived at by this point is that the red line in the sand beyond which global biocide could have been prevented came and went, silently unnoticed under the ever-increasing weight of modern existence. That moment could've passed sixty years ago; it could've passed sixty minutes ago. I see no way that we'll ever know for certain and I don't know if it really matters in the end anyway. Life has the bug/feature that makes near-as-to-be-limitless energy toxic to the longevity of our ecology. This is simply a more complex reindeer-on-St.-Matthews-Island situation.[1]

It's probably time to don sackcloth and ashes and pray in something other than humanism: be it God, the innate benevolence of universal laws, the development of sentient machines, the transmigration of consciousness, or some other improbably-probable deus ex machina that allows continuity of sentient existence from this planet to somewhere more enduring.

Because if the last hundred years have suggested anything, it's that any attempt by Human Authority to voluntarily and mercifully achieve Justice will be, and has been, sabotaged by the ruination of Moloch.[2]

\---

[1] [http://dieoff.org/page80.htm](http://dieoff.org/page80.htm)

[2] [http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on- moloch/](http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/)

<comment><USER2> I don't think we can renounce humanism. I don't think we should, at least. If you've ever seen something beautiful, if you've ever lived with someone really beautiful, in their values, their actions, their character, intelligence, personality, appearance, if you've ever heard truly moving music, I think you'd be betraying yourself by being anything less than a fierce humanist -- all this beauty doesn't belong to the immortal, perennial, indifferent universe, isn't a fruit of the economic system, isn't a product of machines, of the eternal structure of the cosmos, or anything else, even life itself. It lies singularly in the human mind, the beholding eye, and in the presence of other humans to share it.

This demands faith in a certain human ideal -- high above the corruptible idiocy in display in politics -- the basis which produced those indefectible experiences, feelings and ideas most people had a chance of experiencing, or at least had a small glimpse. No matter what happens, one can't lose faith or abandon this defense of the basic human ideal (if only your own humanity) in favor of anything else, or nothing else. It's not about optimism (although optimism can be an important tool in this persistence), it's about maintaining all that is good in the universe (again at least in your own life and loved ones, if it comes to that).

We may go (indeed we _will_ go eventually), but let us go living, and fighting, for what's worth living and fighting for; hollow ones (worshippers of gods or capitals, nihilists and ignoramus) be damned.

Be safe, friend. And Don't you dare go hollow :)</comment></comment></comment>


Color for coders - <AUTHOR> http://www.sitepoint.com/article/color-for-coders

<comment> daniel-cussen Why do so many people think red, yellow and blue are subtractive primary colors?

<comment><USER2> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primary_color>

<comment> daniel-cussen From the article: "During the 18th century, as theorists became aware of Isaac Newton's scientific experiments with light and prisms, red, yellow, and blue became the canonical primary colors—supposedly the fundamental sensory qualities that are blended in the perception of all physical colors and equally in the physical mixture of pigments or dyes. This theory became dogma, despite abundant evidence that red, yellow, and blue primaries cannot mix all other colors, and has survived in color theory to the present day.[16]

Using red, yellow, and blue as primaries yields a relatively small gamut, in which, among other problems, colorful greens, cyans, and magentas are impossible to mix, because red, yellow, and blue are not well-spaced around a perceptually uniform color wheel."</comment></comment></comment>


Google Noscript Page - <AUTHOR> https://www.google.com/maps/place/Marree+Man/@-29.5335821,137.4639693,4044m/data=!3m2!1e3!4b1 <comment><AUTHOR> Open the page with Javascript disabled</comment>


$100B "Internet Idiot" Industry Set To Explode - <AUTHOR> http://www.tekpopuli.com/2008/09/24/100b-internet-idiot-industry-set-to-explode/

<comment><USER2> "...the idiocy of millions who don't understand that those blue-underlined words on the right of search results are NOT, in fact, search results at all."

Wrong.

If you're researching a paper, then the sponsored search results might not be your best bet. But if you're searching for a product you need, I would argue that the sponsored search results might be even more accurate.

Sponsored search results cost people money. Those people are not throwing their money away. There is a reason why they are paying to appear on that particular keyword. They have something you need. They are willing solve to your need for a price.

You're not an idiot if you need a new pair of shoes, click on a sponsored result for Zappos, and find what you want.

<comment><USER3> You're right, sponsored results aren't _just_ for idiots. But the article makes a valid point too. A substantial fraction (maybe majority) of web-users are probably not tech-savvy enough to know the difference between free and paid links.

<comment><USER4> Agreed- remember the release of AOL search data two years ago? That may not be a representative sample, but a large number of those users seemed to have no idea what a search engine's basic function even was.

<comment><USER5> Bah, I disagree. Not giving the average user enough credit. Bit pretentious imho. Now... whether he average user cares? If it looks representative of your search, who cares if it's paid or not?

<comment><USER6> Goldsmith has a point. The following excerpts are from the AOL search logs. One user, sequence of search as listed. Judge for yourself:

geeks do you know where mal&spware-viruses are hard drive or memory

geeks do you know where mal&spware-viruses are hard drive or memory

anybody know where malware and spyware live in my laptop

geeks do you know where mal&spware-viruses are hard drive or memory

mal&spware-viruses are they in hard drive or memory

mal&spware-viruses are they in harddrive or memory

support error doctor

support error doctor

support error doctor

chase user account information

larger than 20gb inexpensive cpu fpr dell c600 laptop

free shiping sites for 40 to 80 gb dell laptop cpu harddrives

sites with free shiping that have;40gb tiwan cpu hard drive for c600 dell laptop

how to jump cpu to erase everything

do you use jumper on cpu to erase everything

do you use jumper on cpu to erase everything

cpu how to erase everything and start empty

cpu how to erase everything and start empty

cpu how to erase everything and start empty ibm travelstar cpu

how to erase everything and start empty where to get internal cpu replscement disk

who stocks internal parts for travelstar cpu 's

who stocks internal parts for travelstar cpus

actual individual internal parts for travelstar cpu

free ship latitude 600 remanufactured travelstar cpu

dellc600 remanufactured travelstar cpu

dell c600 remanufactured travelstar cpu

remanufactured hard drives with trade in core

remanufactured hard drives

aftermarket hard drives for dell laptops

show picture of hard drive for dell c600 wireless laptop

what name has the omand intererter

what name has the comand intererter

what name has the command interpreter

what name has the command interpreter

virus infection remove with send me a cleaner please i will be forced to camcil

aol's-free virus infection remove with send me a cleaner please i will be forced to camcil

mal spy viruses where are they harddrive or memory

stored mail spy viruses where are they hiding

stored mal spy viruses wher are they hiding

if i replade harddrive wil i loose all stored mal spy viruses

new hard drive or memory to rid all virus bugs patches

new hard drive or memory to rid all virus bugs patches

new harddrive or memory to rid all virus bugs patches

support erorrordoctor.com

support erorrordoctor.com

support erorrordoctor.com

support erorrordoctor.com

support erorrordoctor.com

anybody know where malware and spyware live in my laptop

suppor errordoctor

support error doctor

aol don't you have a -free virus infection remove disk for colateral damage during sign-up

aol don't you have a -free virus infection remove disk for colateral damage during sign-up

aol's-free virus infection remove with send me a cleaner please i will be forced to camcil

aol dosn't have a site for damage to computers during sign up

computer animated cartoon sex pictures

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> _This self delusion comes from the fact that acknowledging that the Internet is largely made up of simpletons who do not know what a web application is, will never really understand Twitter, and who continue to use Hotmail happily, and who use Yahoo as their "homepage", puts them at risk of catatonic stupifaction and massive permanent brain damage._

This is amazingly condescending... It completely misses the point of figuring out what people want and assumes everyone is doing nothing better with their time.

For example: I understand twitter just fine and couldn't care much less about it.

<comment><USER8> Agreed. I understand Twitter, it's inherently useless to me and I'll likely never use it.

The whole argument in the piece is invalid. People are using Twitter and Facebook to reduce the amount of time they spend with people whilst trying to stay in contact with people. My girlfriend uses it and I want to block the damn thing because she'll spend an hour on that 'keeping in touch' instead of us going out for a meal with the people we're trying to keep in touch with.

People went from keeping blogs to using twitter and now instead of making a post or two they'll make a couple of microposts. It's completely, inherently moronic. I contend that people using these completely unneeded services are far dumber than the people clicking google ads.

I have little doubt there are people who've spent months worth of time on Facebook when they could have used that time to actually be with family and friends. Or shit, they could have worked the time they wasted and went on a nice vacation to Paris.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm an idiot in more ways than I'm savvy.

Cyclists and motorcyclists think I'm an idiot for driving my car (I'm a "cager") instead of riding to work and getting fit/saving the planet/saving money/not wearing lycra or leather.

And I'm an idiot to the car salesman whose lot I walk onto, knowing very little about cars or vehicle finance or insurance, and I walk out stitched up with a new car loaded with aftermarket products, extended warranty and on high-interest finance.

I'm an idiot to the people who care about fashion because I'm pasty and overweight and I buy what mainstream shops put in front of me.

I'm an idiot to the finance industry for having stacks of debt and no appreciating assets to speak of.

There's a million idiot industries where those in the know make money from the idiots who want to focus their attention on Something Else. The more scrupulous are really just adding value for a fee (say Google, Amazon), and there are those less ethical (e.g. spammers) who take the money of those who can't, don't want to, or are too lazy to learn the ins and outs.

As sarcastic as the article is, it's correct that there's tons of money to be made from these people who don't know or care how the internet works, as long as they get what they want.

</comment><comment><USER10> Exploiting people's decision making through tricks or noise is nothing internet specific. Grocery store marketers have their equations to induce purchases on the shelf by using colors, gimmicks, etc - just like spam kings. Consumer brands place their names in movies, tv shows and songs and sneak into peoples buying habits as a virtue of repetition and numbers - much like the numbers that bring domain squatters their traffic. And, of course, our political leaders are elected by poisoning our attention space with commercials full of falsehoods aimed at changing people's sentiment illogically.

Welcome to our age of idiot capitalism. This is the era where we all get to put up with the information noise created by formulaic entrepreneurs who are seeking to exploit the collective idiot among us.

</comment><comment><USER11> Link should be [http://www.tekpopuli.com/2008/09/24/100b-internet-idiot- indu...](http://www.tekpopuli.com/2008/09/24/100b-internet-idiot-industry-set- to-explode/)

<comment><USER12> Thanks. Is there any way to change this once I've submitted it?

<comment><USER13> There's an edit button, but it goes away after a while.

<comment><USER14> There are a number of editors who can edit URLs after posting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The story itelf appears to have exploded.

<comment><USER16> For some reason, the link had a trailing backslash. It works better without it:

[http://www.tekpopuli.com/2008/09/24/100b-internet-idiot- indu...](http://www.tekpopuli.com/2008/09/24/100b-internet-idiot-industry-set- to-explode/)

<comment><USER17> Idiots.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I second ahpeeyam's point. "...as long as they are getting what they want..."

In my surrounding I meet a lot of people everyday who dont even know youtube. Why consider youtube, the address bar... They are clueless as to what to type in. All they know is www.google.com for info. When they search they are happy to find the info they need whether its the link on the right(ads) or left.

Most common search keywords have quality advertisers. Now that most ads are of quality the user wouldnt mind clicking on them. We shouldnt be forgetting the fact that these ad matches are displayed according to keywords. When you search for "xyz tv", you might get a CNET review for it in your search results and an ad reading "buy xyz tv at $250". Now the action is dependent on the user. He might either read the review or buy it from the ad link or might even buy it from a search result page that read "at 50% discount" which might be an even better price.

</comment><comment><USER19> The real question is, what's the business model for teaching people Internet literacy? And can that even be done?

</comment><comment><USER20> You guys seem to have been missing his point which is rather simple. Most people, unlike us, do not know how the internet works, are rather new to the internet, maybe have not even heard of digg and are stupid, as far as the internet is concerned.

No wonder that market is growing, new people are coming and porbably always will. That I suppose is what the "make a million by tomorrow" market relies on, also spam as he mentioned etc.

His point kind of seems to be, make money off the ignorant as there are many of them.</comment>


Show HN: q1tifier - <AUTHOR>

This is a side project we did.
We call it q1tifier (pronounced 'quantifier') and it's main aim is to make sense of numbers. E.g. if you search for the number '5000' one of the result is '5000m = about the length of 89 NASA Space Shuttles' (see it here! http://duuble.com/q1tifier/view/3/=5000)
Numbers don't really mean anything by themselves, so through this such numbers could be more meaningful! This idea spawned from seeing infographics that often compare numbers we real life stuff, and we decided to make a database for people to supply such small pieces of info and facts.
The database is completely free and open, anyone can add any fact or bit of info. There is also a very basic api that returns results in JSON format.
Help contribute some info/facts to the database! Link: http://duuble.com/q1tifier/ <comment><USER2> The weight of the largest lobster on record is precisely the kind of number that _needs_ q1tified. It's a terrible reference point for q1tifications, because when people think of a lobster, they think of a normal lobster. I would purge anything from the database that isn't "normal".

I would also not bother reporting things with large scalar components (>3 perhaps). Eighty-nine space shuttles? Who can possibly picture that even remotely accurately?

Also, isn't it more common to leave a space before a unit (77 kg instead of 77kg)? And why no Imperial units?

Also, what about area?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, but part of the fun of this is to visualize 89 space shuttles. If not then another q1tifier could be used. We'll slowly fine-tune so the numbers wouldnt be so crazy. We have added the spaces. No imperial units because we used SI units as our base, but we're planning to add it in the future

<comment><USER2> The program also doesn't seem to understand that kg and g are measuring the same thing. I added the fact that an iPhone weighs 137 grams, and if I search for 137 g, I find it. But if I search for 0.137 kg, the program finds nothing at all.

<comment><AUTHOR> ok. we're working on that now

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Very cool, I would definitely circulate this to various news agencies, and teachers groups, they tend to love to quantify numbers with visual solutions (ie our debt, in dollars stacked, would reach from here to the ....)

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks! tell them to add too!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Very cool. But it has some strange results. 0.9 gets lots of results, but 0.09 none. also nothing for 0.1, but do get couple of results for 0.2. Why so?

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Clickable: <http://duuble.com/q1tifier/> If you have any suggestions/improvements, tell us here!

<comment><USER5> You made a typo : <http://duuble.com/q1tifier/>

<comment><AUTHOR> changed. thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> FYI I read that as "quitifier", as in a stop-smoking app.</comment>


Show HN: See what the best startups in the world are using - <AUTHOR> http://leanstack.io/cloudstacks/ <comment><USER2> I'm sorry, but can we stop calling these startups?

Companies like Twitter, eBay, GitHub, Mozilla, Netflix and Atlassian are past the startup stage by now. Many of them have been market leaders for years.

Calling Intuit a startup isn't even stretching it anymore. They're 30 years old and have a revenue of over $4B.

I realize HN thinks startups are sexy, but these have no business being labeled startups. If Intuit is a startup, what does it take to be a called a mature company?

<comment><USER3> [Meta-comment warning]

This comment is in the same category as the one PG talks about here: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4693920>

I don't want to pick on you because there might be a place for your comment but it's not at the top; we need to stop voting these to that position (I'm not encouraging down-votes).

<comment><USER4> Firstly, sspiff isn't dismissing the article. sspiff is making a meta-comment about the article's choices in presenting itself.

Secondly, if it shouldn't be at the top, what should be? I think you are looking at spiff's comment in a vacuum and saying, "This is not platinum- quality comment material!". But there isn't any platinum-quality comment in this page of comments yet. You can't upvote the rightful comment to the top if it doesn't exist yet.

<comment><USER3> I'll concede that this wasn't the best place to make the point (I'll make it again, along with others, including PG). Perhaps I did look at spiff's comment in a vacuum and took advantage of this post being near the top of HN, but this is something that bothers me and clearly does PG, too. Yes, there are not any "platinum-quality comments" but let's remember that this is a recurring problem and that I'm not trying to pick on sspiff.

While it is not outright dismissal, it is dismissive in nature, and again, my primary issue is with voting, not necessarily the comment. I think we could still ask, quoting PG, "Yeah, we know that [Intuit isn't a startup]. But is that the most interesting thing one can say about this article?"

[and now it's getting down-votes after your comment despite PG making it clear time and time again that this is a major problem for HN]

<comment><USER5> I think we could still ask, quoting PG, "Yeah, we know that [Intuit isn't a startup]. But is that the most interesting thing one can say about this article?"

\</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment>-----

For the time being, yes, it is. And given that it wasn't an article being linked to, but a site that included ebay and intuit under the banner of "startups", yes, this might be the most interesting point of the site people want to discuss.

<comment><USER3> > For the time being, yes, it is.

It's a hypothetical not a question of the present state of things but either way, I disagree. Rachel's comment [1] (I understand it wasn't present when I made my first comment), while terse, is more interesting, more likely to foster interesting discussion and doesn't have the dreaded HN "middlebrow dismissal". And I have no doubt HN can come up with much, much better. The point being, it became a "magnet for upvotes" and nothing better ever had a chance to reach the top to encourage more interesting discussion.

> but a site that included ebay and intuit under the banner of "startups", > yes, this might be the most interesting point of the site people want to > discuss.

That's unfortunate; I've found HN to be a place to find great tangentially related discussion to otherwise uninteresting posts. That doesn't happen by accident; we need to foster it.

[1] <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5736869>

<comment><USER4> rachelbythebay's comment is an interesting choice. The core idea could make for an excellent launching point of discussion, but worded so tersely it comes off as very dismissive, which is exactly what you are trying to rally against.

 _it became a "magnet for upvotes" and nothing better ever had a chance to reach the top to encourage more interesting discussion._

This is an interesting way to think of it. I think we could agree that the most valuable comments will not necessarily appear until the article has aged a bit. Clearly HN tries to combat this by moving certain new comments to the top for a little while, but perhaps something more dramatic is needed. Perhaps for a certain period in the thread's life, for example, distribute comments with positive scores using some random seed such that higher rated comments will _generally_ be near the top to avoid wading through a morass of poor quality, but any one (positive-scored) comment might be at the top for any given refresh.

P.S. I don't think you deserve the downvotes you are getting. I obviously don't exactly agree with you, which is why we are having this discussion, but I think you raise valid concerns and make them in a reasoned and articulate manner.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Great idea, but kind of disappointed in the data. For a site called leanstack, I don't see any of the used stack. What DB they're using, which framework, etc.

for example, I know Instagram uses python, redis and Postgres. Pinterest python/django but moving to flask and using MySQL. But I'm curious to know about other sites.

<comment><USER7> Same; I don't associate "stack" with cloud services / SaaS / etc. While I did learn about a few services I didn't know about that seem quite useful, it wasn't what I expected.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Would be interesting to see a recursive descent (probably wrong term, my swedish is getting in the way) of this; Twitter uses Pingdom, now I want to click on Pingdom to see what they use.

Also, a graph with dependencies between these companies would be cool to see. Security companies might want to give the node with most edges a call or two.

</comment><comment><USER9> Getting a lot of 503's, please fix the problem. Seems another website not being able to handle HN 1st page traffic.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry everyone. Just switched to nearlyfreespeech, thought they could handle it. Trying to work through it now.

<comment><USER10> What kind of things are you running there? I have some small not so important sites on NearlyFreeSpeech and have been happy -- would be nice to hear about their limits.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This should be 'See what services the best startups in the world are using'.

<comment><USER12> Exactly. It would be great if we can see which languages and other server side technologies they use.

<comment><USER13> www.builtwith.com seems to be pretty accurate, probably a good starting point for that information.

<comment><USER14> Of the four major sites that I've personally worked on, built with was wrong on them all. Two of the four I expected because it's using Javascript to hit a API and I think that would likely be much more difficult to guess correctly. What I didn't expect was that they would all be reported as using php when none of them do. Sure it's a really small sample set and I bet overall they are doing fine but I thought it worth mentioning.

<comment><USER15> Thanks for the heads up. It explains what I was seeing the other day.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Interesting data but worst presentation ever.

It's tabular data. Put it in a plain old HTML table so we can make sense of it.

</comment><comment><USER17> We are working on something similar at StartHQ. In addition to listing which services any given company uses, we've also been thinking of listing the technologies the services themselves use, e.g. <https://starthq.com/apps/?technology=mongodb>

Is this something you'd find useful?

<comment><USER18> Interesting yes. Useful.....not so much.

The ability to view a company's stack changes over time might prove more useful. For example, what stack did Company X use to get to 10k users, 100k users etc.

Given enough accurate data then it may be possible for a visitor to predict any performance bottlenecks that a technology may enforce over time and what technologies to use to mitigate said problems.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Good people can make amazing stuff happen with any stack.

<comment><USER20> But that's only part of the picture. It's also important to consider how much effort they need to expend to do so, and how many resources are consumed in the process.

Truly good developers will know to discard poor tools in favor of better ones, and will be eager to do so. They don't have emotional attachments to, say, Ruby on Rails or MongoDB, or some other piece of software or service. Once the tool becomes insufficient, it's gone. In many cases, this is obvious right away, so the tool isn't even used in the first place.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Very nice. Throw some charts and graph up in this bitch, compare against time for popularity. I like data.

<comment><USER22> Mash it up with Crunchbase (?) and see if there is any meaningful correlation between stack and funding rounds, stack and IPO, stack and aquihire, ...

<comment><USER21> Would die to see this. OP get on it.

In all seriousness, I would PAY to see this. I would pay extra if you add hosted graph widgets that empirically conclude the largest reciprocal relation between valuation and an IIS/MSSQL stack.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Seems like its time to upgrade your own stack. Getting some 503 errors on some pages.

<comment><USER24> influx of HN users ?, I am getting the same. Refresh sometimes fixes it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I assumed you would pull the javascript embedded in the target sites along with DNS records to see what services they are using. But where do you get Anyperks data from? Are you manually adding this? [EDIT to make more PC]

<comment><USER21> They're manually adding this data.

<comment><USER25> OK. But why did I get a down vote for that? My point is there are probably more optimal ways to add the data than manually gathering it. Nice effort though, of course.

<comment><USER21> You like to point fingers, eh? Is my name pg? I have no idea why.

I will take a gander however and assume someone didn't like what was presumably a rhetorical and pretentious response.

I do though agree. As to your first response, a quick right click will show that the site is made with Wordpress. The lack of formatting for the stack grids suggests it MAY be a plugin from which this is being retrieved; nevertheless with the choice of Wordpress, I am doubtful.

<comment><USER25> Didn't mean to point a finger at you.

Perhaps I don't understand the hn culture, is suggesting ways to do something more efficiently against the rules of Show HN? And if whoever keeps downvoting me wants to discourage me from making similar comments, how about explaining what is wrong with my comment? Instead of anonymously downvoting it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is great insight tool for marketers/business developers. Why did you choose to make this information public? How did you curate all the products/services of all these startups?

</comment><comment><USER26> Cool info, but the presentation could use some help. The pageloads to view companies are slow, and once they show up, the grid of technologies is not the most thoughtful way to organize the data. It's not clear to me whether order has any meaning.

There's got to be a better way to categorize the technologies used. Perhaps separating the core web request stack and from the support components would be a start. Some aggregate information across all of the companies would be useful as well.

</comment><comment><USER27> I would love to see someone do a sort of trade deficit analysis to see how many products one of these companies uses versus how many other companies use them on this site. Obviously everyone will have far more export than import but perhaps the ratio would provide some interesting insight into how a company operates or how competitive their industry is.

It would just be a fun fishing expeditions with the data.

</comment><comment><USER28> Many of these companies are not "startups" anymore.

Fir example, Ebay ?

<comment><USER9> well most of them are startups.

<comment><USER29> I usually make more sure than 'most of x is y' before I claim certain things. This is just hipsterism. Ebay, LinkedIn, Mozilla? Are you kidding?

While in New York I went to some networking events where people said 'I work for a startup', 'How long have you guys been around?', '4 years', 'That doesn't really sound like a startup.', 'I know, but we FEEL like a startup.'... A*holes.

<comment><USER30> When do you cease being a startup?

<comment><USER31> When you shift from customer development to company-building. In other words, when you stop searching for, and instead start scaling, a business model. See also: <http://steveblank.com/2012/03/05/search-versus-execute/>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I have a validation bug to report: "Is your service currently in Beta?" is a required field however there is no way to answer with no to that.

</comment><comment><USER33> Is there a site that talks about the technology in the stacks in use by startups instead of the cloud and SaaS platforms they are using?

</comment><comment><USER34> Pretty cool showcase-style site; I could easily see finding a service here that I didn't know everyone else was using. Every software company starting out really should look through these services and others like them, just see if there's something interesting.

BTW -- Unicode fail at: "99designs is the world's largest..." and other places. Check your page's UTF-8 support.

</comment><comment><USER35> You might want to optimize those images (startup logos). Many of them are like 175 KB each.

<comment><USER36> And pngslim turns some of them into 3-5 KB files without changing even a pixel... by the time I saw more than a white blank screen, it had already downloaded 2 megabytes, with no end in sight. That's just nuts.

Everyone, always: If you make websites on a super fast connection, get a proxy (or VM) to simulate a slow connection...! You will learn a lot of things which will become easy habits quickly, and then you can turn off the proxy (turn it on again occasionally).

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Btw orignal post from the co-founder Yonas, seem to have no traffic: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5243671> (89 days ago)

</comment><comment><USER37> The 'Submit Your Startup' form doesn't validate because there's no way to say no to the 'Is this a cloud service intended for developers?' field (because it's a checkbox rather than radio buttons).

</comment><comment> daniel-levin This is pretty cool. There was a service a while back which seems to have died called weusethis. It also had interviews with the engineers at the startups detailing how they used their tech stacks.

<comment><USER38> It's not dead. It's alive and kicking: <http://usesthis.com/>

</comment></comment><comment> why-el This is similar in spirit to weusethat.com (itself modeled after usesthis.com), which I really liked but they stopped updating the content mid- past-december. Hopefully leanstack continues.

</comment><comment><USER39> Hey yonasb this is really cool, if you'd like to automate it a bit let me know we've got an API for this (api.builtwith.com) and we've got free attribution version that you could use.

</comment><comment><USER40> Many comments here are focusing on negative stuff, so I wanted to say congrats, I find this website incredibly interesting and useful! I learned a lot browsing through it!

</comment><comment><USER36> You should run those .pngs through pngslim or similar :/

</comment><comment><USER41> Just FYI: <http://leanstack.io/soundcloud/> "SoundCloud is the world's leading"

</comment><comment><USER42> In the same vein, sign up at swRev.com to find out when we launch with a consumer reports for software. Should be this summer.

</comment><comment><USER43> The Squarespace link goes to /squarespace/c instead of /squarespacec, and incorrectly shows the profile for Cage.

</comment><comment><USER44> I don't think your use of hamburger buttons is appropriate. Maybe a normal button would be better?

</comment><comment><USER45> There is a typo on the Braintree company information page. Right at the beginning.

</comment><comment><USER46> Nice; I started doing something similar at thestack.io but lost momentum.

</comment><comment><USER47> It would be cool to check all the startups that use a certain tool.

</comment><comment><USER48> Your Dropbox link is broken (/dropboxc vs /dropbox)

</comment><comment><USER49> But what does leanstack use? ;)

</comment><comment><USER50> Wow Github is on Rackspace?

</comment><comment><USER51> Needs more software.</comment>


BMW Australia Refusing to Comply with Terms of GNU Public License - <AUTHOR> https://gist.github.com/duncan-bayne/fc3213d4a0eabb70bb1e <comment><USER3> To me this doesn't really look like a clear cut case. Does he own one of these cars? If not, then I think it is very dubious whether he has any standing to request the source code. If he _does_ then included with the car should be an offer for how to access the GPL source code. He should have followed that (or clearly stated that he could not locate it in his email). The requirement for him to enter the VIN to access the source code does not seem unreasonable since they are only required to distribute source code to customers, and he has simply emailed them out of the blue asking them to give him the source without any proof that he's a customer. The statement about BMW being the "sole owner" is probably concerning proprietary parts of the software that may not be subject to GPL at all. It is probably way beyond the skills of some random customer service rep to distinguish the subtleties of those kind of things.

This kind of interaction actually looks to me to be _counter_ to the spirit under which the Free Software Foundation tries to administer the GPL - <USER2> is that they work cooperatively to help companies comply rather than try to trick them into legal hot water. I agree with the FSF approach and I don't think this sort of PR ambush type tactic is helpful in promoting the use of free software.

<comment><USER4> > To me this doesn't really look like a clear cut case. Does he own one of > these cars? If not, then I think it is very dubious whether he has any > standing to request the source code.

(All section references below are to GPLv2, since that is what the Linux kernel uses)

Section 3 governs distribution of object or executable code. Section 3 gives these requirements:

a) Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable source code, which must be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,

b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,

c) Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer to distribute corresponding source code. (This alternative is allowed only for noncommercial distribution and only if you received the program in object code or executable form with such an offer, in accord with Subsection b above.)

BMW is distributing commercially and they did not receive the program in object or executable form, so option "c" is out.

They are not distributing the source code with their cars, so option "a" is out.

That leaves option "b", which requires them to give the code to _any third party_ that requests it, at no more than their cost of performing a source distribution.

<comment><USER5> _" They are not distributing the source code with their cars, so option "a" is out"_

I disagree. BMW currently offers the source code as a download on their website if a customer provides his 7-digit VIN, so this is them fulfilling the requirement that they must "accompany [the car] with the complete corresponding machine-readable source code". It is all in the meaning of "accompany it": giving the source code physically along with the keys when you purchase the car, or offering a source code download link. I would argue that either option is compliant with the GPL, so to me it seems BMW is in the right.

Edit: s/IBM/BMW/

<comment><USER6> (I think you meant BMW, not IBM...)

<comment><USER7> BMW VIN must be longer than 7 digits.... IBM product license serial numbers at 7 digits would make more sense.

<comment><USER8> BMW only ever cares about the last 7 digits of your VIN, as demonstrated on their iDrive software update page:

[http://www.bmw.com/update](http://www.bmw.com/update)

(an example code would be "J123456")

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Google could have helped here:

BMW Car IT: Open Source [http://www.bmw-carit.com/open- source/](http://www.bmw-carit.com/open-source/)

I'll take a guess based on the filename "ConnStarter" in the BMW firmware that ConnMann is the primary GPL'd software. As the BMW site says: "The ConnMan project provides a daemon for managing internet connections within embedded devices running the Linux operating system.... ConnMan is available under the terms of the GPL v2."

[http://www.bmw-carit.com/open-source/connman.php](http://www.bmw- carit.com/open-source/connman.php)

You can download the source if you like.

<comment><USER10> The linked site may be useful, but where on that site did you find a download link for the specific software version (including modifications) used? All I see is a generic link to ConnMan's project website. I don't think that suffices?

<comment><USER9> I think BMW would argue that contributing their modifications directly to the ConnMan Git repository for others to use would suffice. You can find a list of BMW's commits to the ConnMan project here (Daniel Wagner seems to be the main developer from BMW Car IT working on it):

[http://git.kernel.org/cgit/network/connman/connman.git/log/?...](http://git.kernel.org/cgit/network/connman/connman.git/log/?qt=author&q=bmw)

<comment><USER11> BMW would be wrong to argue that. They are required to provide corresponding source code, which means the exact version they put in the cars, with any patch files and build scripts needed to build it.

They can't just link to the general project site

<comment><USER12> In the era of distributed source control, it seems reasonable to me if "provide" meant, "link to a repo with our changes". I can see why that's not in the letter of the GPL (e.g., what if github ceases to exist ten years from now, and you want to tinker on your car), but for now it seems reasonable.

<comment><AUTHOR> It is in fact in the letter of the GPL:

[https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl- faq.html#SourceInCVS](https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#SourceInCVS)

The actual relevant text of GPLv3 is in section 6d:

        d) Convey the object code by offering access from a designated
        place (gratis or for a charge), and offer equivalent access to the
        Corresponding Source in the same way through the same place at no
        further charge.  You need not require recipients to copy the
        Corresponding Source along with the object code.  If the place to
        copy the object code is a network server, the Corresponding Source
        may be on a different server (operated by you or a third party)
        that supports equivalent copying facilities, provided you maintain
        clear directions next to the object code saying where to find the
        Corresponding Source.  Regardless of what server hosts the
        Corresponding Source, you remain obligated to ensure that it is
        available for as long as needed to satisfy these requirements.

In GPLv2, this reads a bit differently:

        If distribution of executable or object code is made by offering
        access to copy from a designated place, then offering equivalent
        access to copy the source code from the same place counts as
        distribution of the source code, even though third parties are not
        compelled to copy the source along with the object code.

GPLv3 here seems a bit clearer to me. This in fact is one of the better reasons for GPLv3. It gives more modern options for distributing source code, since internet distribution became a lot more popular by the time GPLv3 was written.

<comment><USER9> The code is licensed under GPL 2, but I agree the GPL 3 is actually much clearer & seems to suggest they're in compliance. (At least in respect to ConnMan.)

Either way, if people are genuinely concerned and want a specific version of the source code for their car, it seems Daniel Wagner is a contact at BMW to ask. There's an email address in the git repository commits.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> What GPL licensed software are they actually infringing upon? The linked post[1] says they found mentions of systemd, but does the firmware actually contain a linux kernel? I don't see anything that looks like a kernel in the file listing.

Also if the firmware is properly signed delivering it over http shouldn't matter, right?

[1] [https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2016/02/bmw-are-sending-their- softw...](https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2016/02/bmw-are-sending-their-software- updates-une=ncrypted/)

<comment><USER14> The specific update here is just a delta update, and doesn't contain the entire firmware. But it does contain shared libraries built for running on a linux system, so it stands to reason there's linux kernel running somewhere there.

(On that note - have someone sent a similar request to Tesla - they've at least semi-officially said they're running Linux)

<comment><USER15> > (On that note - have someone sent a similar request to Tesla - they've at > least semi-officially said they're running Linux)

Yes, people have sent requests to Tesla, and they continue to ignore these requests to this day. See [http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/archive/index.php/t-10748.htm...](http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/archive/index.php/t-10748.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Frankly: given recent news (hacked jeeps, software used to cheat on emission tests) I think it is time to _require_ _all_ software used on vehicles that transit on public roads to be open sourced and available to the public. (for independent testing and verification in the name of public safety)

<comment><USER17> Vehicles aren't the only things running software that might need verifying. Far from it. While I wholeheartedly agree that it would be an amazing step, I also fear the huge backlash from the car and IT industry. Doing this more gradual probably works better, perhaps requiring open source (I'm not talking freedom of modification or redistributing or anything yet, just viewing source code) for software older than x years (like the patent model a bit, 20 years or so).

Of course Windows 10 wouldn't have to be open source just because Windows is older than 20 years, but Windows 95 would be.

Anyway, that is just one of the many possible ways. I just think we should be weary of people stuck in the old ways and not limit the move to just cars.

<comment><USER18> > Doing this more gradual probably works better, perhaps requiring open source > (I'm not talking freedom of modification or redistributing or anything yet, > just viewing source code) for software older than x years (like the patent > model a bit, 20 years or so).

In that case, the car software is still proprietary software so you've gained very little from making the source code public. If a vulnerability is found, you can't write a patch for it and you have to wait for BMW to "get around to you". Car software should be free software _upfront_.

<comment><USER17> > Car software should be free software upfront.

Yes! Just like medical implants (and the server-side counterparts that control them), and my password manager, and actually any software that is in between me and my password manager (OS, drivers, perhaps a browser), and private stuff like my email client/server, and instant messaging client/server, and things that track my vitals like those smart watch-like wristbands, and any non- domestically developed software the government uses, etc.

Except few people aside from a few "open source radicals" will think like that. For every person I know who will fully support this motion, I know five who will object and another one or two who aren't really sure, and I already have a biased social circle because I do believe in this cause.

As it stands, we never get to peek under the hood. A system like this would at least make people aware that "gosh, if we implement this cheating now (or whatever), we have to make sure to cover it up before we have to go public with it. Better document extensively where it's implemented so we can remove it thoroughly". Which is a bigger step than just one manager going "do it". And we would be able to see trends over the past years and reflect necessary changes in new policy. Perhaps two decades too late by then, but as it stands, we have naught.

Then once people get used to the idea that in 20 years, when the software is commercially useless anyway, perhaps we can open source it sooner. Or more companies will go "look at us, we publish after 5 years for transparency without loosing our cutting edge!" A bit of wishful thinking perhaps, but I'm sure some will, and everyone would be forced after a certain time anyway.

But once again, this is just one way of doing it. There are almost certainly better ways I didn't think of yet. We should just be thinking about it in the first place.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> It seems to me less like refusal to comply with the terms of GPL, and more like denial that they use GPLed code.

        > I have confirmed with our technical department who
        > advised that ... the usage rights agreement states that
        > the software is protected by copyright and BMW is the
        > sole owner... it is not subject to the requirements of a
        > "Public" licence

That may or may not be the case, but to me that doesn't say "yeah we use, na you can't have it".

</comment><comment><USER20> I'm confused here. Where is the evidence that they've modified GPL'd software, which they are then distributing, and are refusing to distribute the source code for their modifications?

<comment><USER21> > Where is the evidence that they've modified GPL'd software

There's a Linux kernel and systemd in the 'i3'. See the links in the first few sentences of the article.

> which they are then distributing

BMW is a Bayerische Motor Work, a car company that distributes cars

> and are refusing to distribute the source code for their modifications?

The letters from BMW to the people asking for a copy of the source, stating they are refusing to distribute the source code for their modifications, linked to in the article.

<comment><USER20> I read that, but isn't this is the lowest type of "violation" there is? People are just wanting them to host the source code that is already available in about a billion locations then?

My question still stands, is there evidence that they're modifying GPL'd code and then not distributing that code?

<comment><USER22> I think if they're running unmodified code, they could just say "we are running X version Y with no modifications" and link to the upstream and be done with it. Which could be the case.

Or they _have_ modified it and are refusing to release the source with their modifications. But they haven't stated the former.

<comment><USER23> Technically they don't need to give you the code unless you own that model of car. There's no requirement in the GPL that the code has to be shared to the whole world/everyone. It only needs to be provided to the person that has bought the vehicle which includes said software in compiled form.

<comment><USER24> This is not correct. They need to provide the offer for source to anyone they provide the binaries to (e.g. customers) but the offer has to be valid for anyone that gets a hold of it[1].

[1][http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl- faq.en.html#WhatDoesWrittenO...](http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl- faq.en.html#WhatDoesWrittenOfferValid)

<comment><USER23> I think I didn't expand my comment enough. In this context (of software running a car), the manufacturer needs to provide a way of getting the GPL'd source code to anyone that owns a vehicle with the relevant binary running in the car.

Basically you don't lose your GPL software right if you've bought the car from someone else other than the manufacturer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Worth noting that the BMW people in the thread are in customer support, not legal.

<comment><USER9> Looking through the user's Github account, they have a history of contacting customer support representatives of companies and threatening to post the transcripts to Hacker News if their specific legal concerns are not addressed:

[https://gist.github.com/duncan- bayne/74d6e38c506000982237](https://gist.github.com/duncan- bayne/74d6e38c506000982237)

<comment><USER26> How else can one get in touch with a megacorp?

<comment><USER27> I would assume the legal department would generally read and respond to letters on legitimate concerns, even at a megacorp.

<comment><USER28> Generally speaking, they will _definitely_ read them (and occasionally take action), but only respond if they have some legal obligation to do so. Any reply they make to an inquiry or accusation of this type can be used against them, but a lack of response cannot (unless that lack of response violates some requirement of the law).

<comment><USER29> This is why it's good to have a bilateral contract with them prior to your contact, so that they have a legal obligation to reply. When they dont reply to your offer of renegotiation or relief, you're safe to use their silence as acquiescence or dishonor, depending on circumstance.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Please correct me if I'm wrong. I thought the GPL only required providing the source code to the purchasers of the product. (Who can then redestribute it if they'd like.) I didn't think it meant that if you use GPL code in your product, then you are obligated to make your code available to everyone.

<comment><USER31> You are required to distribute the source code to anyone you distribute binaries to. So if for instance their binaries were available to the public then they would also have to make their source code available to the public. It seems in this case they released a patch to their software and made the patch available to the public.

<comment><USER32> If I sell a computer with Linux on it, and I bundle on my own application that's compiled to run on Linux, am I required to make the source code for that application available?

In this case, if they just have an unmodified copy of Linux to provide the run-time environment for their nav system or whatever, and the nav system itself is an application on top of it, I don't know if it follows that they need to release the source for their nav system.

<comment><USER33> If it's an application, no, but if it's a kernel module (e.g. drivers to talk to their devices), then yes. They still have to offer a copy of the kernel source, even if they haven't modified it.

<comment><USER34> >If it's an application, no, but if it's a kernel module (e.g. drivers to talk to their devices), then yes.

There is debate about this, but there are certainly cases of compliant non-GPL modules. It doesn't strictly follow. (Consider Ndiswrapper, for example.)

> They still have to offer a copy of the kernel source, even if they haven't > modified it.

I don't really think the license implies technical minutae like this. The source must simply be made available "on a medium customarily used for software interchange". Whether you point to a tag on kernel.org or host it own your own web servers (both cases including the Kconfig) is irrelevant.

<comment><USER33> _There is debate about this, but there are certainly cases of compliant non- GPL modules. It doesn 't strictly follow. (Consider Ndiswrapper, for example.)_

Ndiswrapper is GPL-licensed. The resulting modules are probably not, but they are usually not distributed anyway.

 _I don 't really think the license implies technical minutae like this. The source must simply be made available "on a medium customarily used for software interchange". Whether you point to a tag on kernel.org or host it own your own web servers (both cases including the Kconfig) is irrelevant._

Sure, but have they pointed?

<comment><USER34> > Ndiswrapper is GPL-licensed. The resulting modules are probably not, but > they are usually not distributed anyway.

I was referring to modules wrapped by ndiswrapper. Of course they are distributed.

There are other examples as well: nvidia being a salient one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> History has proven over and over again that this kind of public shame and blame approach doesn't help in any way, quite the opposite.

Hand this over to the Free Software Conservancy or the SFLC. And that should have been the first step.

Now that the bridges are burning, BMW will be far less open to civil discussion and cooperative solutions. Well done. #sarcasm

<comment><USER17> History has proven over and over again that naming and shaming works miracles. Companies that turned a blind eye and were completely unreachable suddenly turned active and kind just to save their reputation. Going to or even just threatening to go to the media, I know from experience, is indeed productive.

I am really curious where you got the idea that it's counter productive. Asking the conservancy to clean up this dirty work is expensive and takes forever.

<comment><USER36> The problem is when random people from the internet start unwarranted attacks over GPL violations when the problem can be dealt with constructively.

The example that pops into my head is the time when some kid start working on a mod to the Quake 3D engine that was possibly in violation of a free software license. Instead of just reporting it to the copyright holder (id Software), they engaged in a campaign of harassment until John Carmack himself came out and told them to stop. It was some seriously shameful shit.

Public shaming should be one of the last steps to take. Maybe before starting a lawsuit, or maybe after, that's up for debate, but certainly after other avenues have been exhausted.

<comment><USER17> I see your point but would say there is a difference between a kid and a multinational. The same law rules both but an individual doing this by accident vs. a company doing it due to ignorance (in the best case) is different. The multinational has enough money to defend itself in court, any individual is bound to have less, especially a kid (in your example).

<comment><USER37> What does this person realistically expect to gain by contacting Tier 1 customer service about an issue with -the source code and licensing of an in car entertainment computer-?

Now in theory, CS should be "empowered" or able to escalate, but this is juvenile, to me, the very briefest of exchanges and then off to HN and elsewhere with "time for a lawsuit!".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Harald Welte founded gpl-violations ([http://gpl- violations.org/about/](http://gpl-violations.org/about/)) 12 years ago. The have been offline for some time, but it looks like they plan to continue with their activities this year: "Actual GPL enforcement activity is expected to resume at some point in 2016." Maybe they can help sorting this out.

</comment><comment><USER39> Has anyone ever seen GPL being encorced in any country?

Wont this end with BWM uploading a tar.gz of a kernel found on kernel.org and call it a good working day?

Have seen it happen too many times, and in most countries the user has no claim on the license/copyright.

So unless I contributed/own some copyright found in exact Linux kernel version/other software used by a distributor, and buy their stuff, there is zilch I can do.

Which also means, you are free to sell/and break GPL software/license and as long as you dont upset somebody who owns the copyright to it, you're good to go.

<comment><USER40> Yes, and actually on BMW home country, Germany. The summary can be read at this old Slashdot submission [1] from 2005 but the gist of it is that

 _> Harald Welte of the netfilter/iptables core team sought to enjoin Sitecom from distributing its WL-122 router, which used netfilter's GPL'd code, without also providing the source code and a copy of the GPL, as that license requires _

and

 _> The Munich Court granted Welte a preliminary injunction [2] and then upheld that injunction [3][4] _

I believe there are other instances of GPL being upheld in courts around the world and this one should be only one of many examples.

GPL is not even necessary in these cases, in the absence of the (GP) license it reverts to the default copyright rules, with all rights of copy and distribution being at the hands of the copyright holders (save for Fair use and other exceptions).

A company that would try to argue that GPL is not a valid license in court would actually be admitting in court that they are distributing the software without a license from the copyright holders all along.

[1] Munich Court Again Enforces GPL: [http://news.slashdot.org/story/05/04/14/2024258/munich- court...](http://news.slashdot.org/story/05/04/14/2024258/munich-court-again- enforces-gpl)

[2] Preliminary injunction: [http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/04/15/1649250&tid=...](http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/04/15/1649250&tid=123)

[3] Injunction upheld: [http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/07/23/1558219&tid=...](http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/07/23/1558219&tid=117)

[4] Court's decision in English (pdf): [http://www.jbb.de/judgment_dc_munich_gpl.pdf](http://www.jbb.de/judgment_dc_munich_gpl.pdf)

<comment><USER41> Yup, I can remember several companies settling and being forced to comply for violations of busybox GPL'd code in the US off the top of my head - Verizon, Extreme Networks and Xterasys. There are likely quite a few other examples of GPL being successfully enforced.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> At least their update binaries are unencrypted, which allow us to see what they are using. If some of you want to have a look: The article: [https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2016/02/bmw-are-sending-their- softw...](https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2016/02/bmw-are-sending-their-software- updates-unencrypted/)

Direct link to the binary: [http://www.bmw.com/_common/shared/owners/bluetooth/bin/UPD07...](http://www.bmw.com/_common/shared/owners/bluetooth/bin/UPD07012.bin)

</comment><comment><USER43> Good. I'm sick of people walking over copyleft licenses generally. It's only because of copyleft that there exists a pro-sharing social norm in the software development community. If you kick down the GPL, the norm will shift back toward proprietary software everywhere. You, young developer, have no idea just how shitty a world that is.

</comment><comment><USER44> Tesla still continues to violate the GPL as well - [https://forums.teslamotors.com/forum/forums/gpl- sources](https://forums.teslamotors.com/forum/forums/gpl-sources).

</comment><comment><USER45> I've gotten the same response from a company when requesting kernel source before. What is the best source for help in dealing this? I reached out to GNU but got no response. I know the kernel isn't their project but didn't know where else to turn.

</comment><comment><USER46> Poor customer support agent.

</comment><comment><USER47> Is it a violation if they don't modify Linux itself? So if I make a device that runs Linux and my application binary, am I required to make my application code public?

<comment><USER17> In that case, it shouldn't be a problem to point to Linux' code repository right?

<comment><USER48> And it won't be. But cut their public relations staff some slack. They can't tell Richard Stallman from Gregory Rasputin, and before saying or doing anything they're going to be bringing themselves up to speed on what the GPL is. No need to get rage-y just yet.

<comment><USER17> It's their obligation to forward what they don't understand. If I work for a mobile network carrier and say something that indicates we don't follow some privacy law, it's my fault for not asking my boss how we handle certain things. (And my boss might ask his/hers, etc.)

Edit: I didn't downvote you, by the way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> Misleading title; it looks more like they in fact refuse to acknowledge at all that some of the code is someone else's.

> _Part of the usage rights agreement states that the software is protected by > copyright and BMW is the sole owner. So in this case it is not subject to > the requirements of a "Public" licence [sic]_

I.e. "This is all our software; there is no third-party GPL stuff in it, so we need not comply with any such license."

</comment><comment><USER50> What is the worst-case scenario for an entity that refuses to comply?

<comment><USER51> Probably not much and that's why I don't put any licenses on my stuff.

<comment><USER52> So, you release code but don't let anyone use it? Because that's the legal effect of not putting licenses on your stuff.

<comment><USER51> Yep and I use code without license all the time. Show me one case where that has ever caused a problem.

<comment><USER53> The point isn't that it may cause you a problem. The point is that the license is the structure by which people understand how they can use things, and the lack of a license is generally taken as "don't touch this" by the larger community. It's essentially opting out of the larger pool of contribution, which is of course totally valid and your right.

<comment><USER52> It's not just how the community interprets it; it's the law.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> So it is strange for me even if I understand GPL. Does it means all the network routers running custom linux have to provide sources of entire modification? I assume if we want companies to make use of linux on a wide level, there should be the ways to overcome this problem(if exists).

<comment><USER55> What's the problem?

<comment><USER54> First is security, if current asset based on linux is vulnerable and you make it public consequences are obvious. Or even your system is vulnerable itself because of modifications. Or 0day that will reveal afterwards. And your product is based on embedded systems. I understand it's your choice, but it holds the development.

Second is competitive advantage. If you have to release modified system, that you use in your product on day 0, when you started, it interfere your business. Again it's your choice, but it could hold the development. So reasonable alternative would be good.

<comment><USER18> If you choose to use code that is under the GPL or similar copyleft licenses, then you have to play by the rules and provide people you distribute your software to a way to get the source code.

<comment><USER54> Yes, I understand

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> This is ridiculous. So now, any John Doe can contact customer support of any company, then publicly shame them for not getting the response they want? Aren't there organizations with the sole purpose of investigating Free Software license violations, with access to actual lawyers? Where's the email thread of such correspondence?

This sounds like a child crying mommy. Oh, and while I usually approve attempts at breaking the way-too-serious corporate speak, smileys seem to detract from the gravity of the issue being discussed.

Can we get responsible people to handle this, please? Like the Free Software Foundation? Not a flash mob on the internet. This is counter-productive.

</comment><comment><USER57> It seems to me that they're not distributing any software (i.e., the product is a car, not software), which means licensing doesn't come into play. It would be akin to someone finding out that I'm _privately_ using (and maybe modifying) GPL software, and then demand that I make the source code available to them. Only in GPLv3, the issue of selling a product that uses GPL software internally is addressed. The situation changes of course once they make the software itself accessible to third parties, in which case they'd also have to supply the source code.

<comment><USER58> If that were the case, you could get around the GPL by claiming to sell CDs, thumbdrives, or zip files. Including software in your hardware product is undeniably distributing that software, IMO.

<comment><USER57> I disagree. If you sell me a CD with software on it, I have the software. If you sell me a car that runs a software internally, I have a car, but not the software. The car, unlike the CD, is not a container for the software. In fact, there is no trivial or intended way to get the software out of the car. As I said, GPLv3 addresses this explicitly, but with GPLv2 the license just doesn't apply. Then again, lots of people strongly dislike GPLv3, possibly exactly for this reason.

<comment><USER57> Incidentally, if you send me a USB stick with some GPL software on it, I can demand that you give me the source code of that software. However, I can _not_ demand that you also give me the source code for the _firmware_ of the USB stick, even if the source code for that firmware is under GPL (v2)

<comment><USER18> I would definitely demand the firmware if it is GPL. Just because it is "firmware" doesn't suddenly not make it software that you've given me.

<comment><USER57> I can't fathom a reading of the GPLv2 that would support your position. It's just not in there (it is, in GPLv3).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> Duncan here. I'm the one who contacted BMW to ask about source code availability. I don't own one of the BMWs in question, but the chap who wrote the original article investigating the update contents did.

I've since been contacted by someone clueful from BMW Germany, and have put him in touch with the car owner. They are working together to determine what needs to be done for BMW to be compliant.

tl;dr: It looks like it's all going to be sorted out amicably.

</comment><comment><USER60> This topic is getting dull every time on HN. Someone has to argue about GPL, free software vs proprietary software.

</comment><comment><USER61> pretty sure it's this: [http://www.magnetimarelli.com/excellence/technological- excel...](http://www.magnetimarelli.com/excellence/technological- excellences/open-source-platform-genivi-compliant)

can't find the source for it though.</comment>


Bowler: Safe code refactoring for modern Python - <AUTHOR> https://pybowler.io/ <comment><USER2> Author here: I created Bowler as a "hackamonth" project when I joined Facebook's internal Python Foundation team. We've already used it for a bunch of random codemods that touch a large number of source files throughout our codebase.

Happy to answer any questions you might have!

<comment><USER3> [https://pybowler.io/docs/basics-setup](https://pybowler.io/docs/basics-setup) mentions a facebook/bowler github repository, but no such repository exists (or it is private). Where does the source code live?

Edit: Found it — it's currently at [https://github.com/facebookincubator/bowler](https://github.com/facebookincubator/bowler) instead.

<comment><USER2> Good catch, I'll get that fixed! [edit: fixed now!]

<comment><USER3> Excellent! Thanks for the quick fix.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Could this be used to create a macro system for python?

<comment><USER5> I'm sure it could be used that way, but the compile() function and the ast library (part of the stdlib) are a more direct way to create a macro system:

[https://docs.python.org/3/library/ast.html](https://docs.python.org/3/library/ast.html)

I've built macros using the ast library before and it works, but I also found I could adjust my DSL's grammar just a bit and express the same thing with ordinary Python code. That's why Python macro systems rarely gain much traction.

BTW Bowler looks cool. I expect to try it next time I do a big refactor.

<comment><USER6> For bytecode level transformations rather than AST level: [https://github.com/llllllllll/codetransformer](https://github.com/llllllllll/codetransformer)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This was first presented at PyconAU 2018 - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9USGh4Uy- xQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9USGh4Uy-xQ)

</comment><comment><USER8> This is akin to the other "codemod" facilities Facebook already uses for large-scale refactoring in _busy_ codebases (particularly, their JS codebases), but for Python ([https://github.com/facebook/codemod](https://github.com/facebook/codemod), [https://github.com/facebook/jscodeshift](https://github.com/facebook/jscodeshift)).

<comment><USER2> Notably, or notoriously, our previous codemod project just used regexes, which could result in ballooning complexity, especially when needing to modify code that might include type annotations. Bowler was designed specifically to allow refactoring against more complicated subjects, such as function signature changes, where you lose all predictability in formatting at both the definition and call site.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I could imagine a library of transformers being created using this tool.

For instance we've just enabled the pep3101 Flake8 plugin which enforces newstyle string formatting over % formatting. I'd love to see a transformer that automates that refactoring.

<comment><USER2> This sounds like exactly the sort of transforms and codemods that Bowler was designed to handle. Furthermore, we plan to support more linter-style features, and would like to have it integrated with tools like Flake8 or Phabricator, so that it can simultaneously find lints, and immediately suggest modifications to resolve those lints.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Is this to help migration from python 2 to python 3, or a tool to make python 3 better? it's unclear after I read it except it mentions it's based on 2to3.

<comment><USER11> Bowler doesn't have much to do with 2to3, except that they have the same library underneath.

lib2to3, despite the name, is a fairly generic refactoring library.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> How well does this handle dynamic constructs? Eg if I rename a method and elsewhere have

        if hasattr(obj, 'foo'):

does that get caught or not?

<comment><USER2> No, it would not catch that, because it's not tracing elements through the AST. It would be possible to do some amount of tracing, but it would be impossible to catch and modify all variants of that, since Python is an extremely dynamic language. Imagine something like:

        attr = "foo" if conditionA else "bar"
        obj = A() if conditionB else B()
        if hasattr(obj, attr):
            ...

Because of this, Bowler is focused on being more practical, and leans on the expectation that an engineer will be in the loop and validate the resulting diff, run unit tests, etc.

<comment><USER13> I apologize but I'm really having trouble understanding what the problem you are referring too. In python syntax that would be written as -

        if ConditionA:
            attr = "foo"
        else:
            attr = "bar"

        if ConditionB:
            obj = A()
        else:
            obj = B()

        if hasattr(attr, obj):
            do_magic()

I haven't tested Bowler yet but I would think something that refactors code would handle that pretty easily?

<comment><USER14> A() and B() could return two different classes that both support foo and bar methods. If your refactor is to rename one of those methods for one of the classes this code breaks and it's not trivial to update automatically, is it?

<comment><USER15> in general, given this is python, A and B could do something completely foul like request data from the internets and `eval(...)` it then return the result, or redefine `True, False = False, True` or redefine

      hasattr = lambda *args: False`

or something equally insane and difficult to statically analyse

> Eg if I rename a method and elsewhere have `if hasattr(obj, 'foo'):`

Further, even in the absence of insane dynamic code, it probably isn't possible to automatically make a correct decision without knowing the _intent_ of the original code.

For example, maybe we're renaming the `foo` method of `Fizz` class to `barr`, and currently the program is written such that `is hasattr(obj, 'foo'):` only happens to be called on `Fizz` instances. Is it the case that the programmer only ever intended that code to be called on `Fizz` instances, or did the programmer intend it should operate on all types that have a `foo` attribute, including old-style `Fizz` instances and new types that might be encountered in future? In the former case, we should rewrite the logic to `hasattr(obj, 'barr')`, in the latter case perhaps we should leave it unchanged, so it will no longer trigger after the refactor.

i do agree it should be possible to automatically flag this as "here be something interesting to consider! please intervene and make a manual decision!"

<comment><USER12> I think these sorts of cases of obfuscated code are outside the scope of refactoring tools. No one who's looking to use a refactoring tool has to write or read code that uses eval or redefines True.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I haven't had to use it before, but another tool in that space is "undebt" from Yelp:

[https://github.com/Yelp/undebt](https://github.com/Yelp/undebt)

</comment><comment><USER17> Is it possible to use this in vscode ?

That would be awesome.

<comment><USER2> The possibility is there, but we haven't pursued any specific integrations yet. For obvious reasons, we would most likely work on Nuclide integration first, and something like VSCode support would probably need to come from the community. As Bowler is primarily providing the API framework, most integrations will likely just be plugins that make calls to the Bowler API, or execute the bowler CLI, with appropriate queries.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Seems like more work to me. Simple search and replace is usually sufficient for something like what the intro video shows.

<comment><USER19> I'm finding Visual Studio Code does an excellent job with "rename symbol" or "change all occurrences".

<comment><USER20> Funny, I've found it seems to struggle with any references that cross language boundaries.... except with typescript, for some reason.

EDIT: Sorry, I meant 'file' boundary, not 'language' boundary.

<comment><USER21> Why not, you know, edit the actual sentence instead of adding a thing that says EDIT but leaves the original confusingly unedited?

<comment><USER22> Because, I guess, it's courteous to the people who already commented on the original, so they don't look like they were talking nonsense.

<comment><USER21> You make the edit and then you describe the edit, to avoid that.

<comment><USER22> Ah, good point. (I guess I wasn't confused by the edit - though if I'd been here longer I probably would've been - but I was by your comment!)

<comment><USER21> Wait, what? You can't just politely walk away from a from a pointless argument over minutia like that. You _are_ new around here. These must extend to a minimum thread depth of 12. Please review the guidelines.

<comment><USER22> Hahaha! Gold. Thanks, you made my day. Sorry you lost mana for it, I'd +100 if I could. Well, I _was_ reading about [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sayre%27s_law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sayre%27s_law) on here recently.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Amazon shows off new 7-inch and 8.9 inch Kindle Fires - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/09/amazon-shows-off-new-kindle-fire-shipping-sept-14-for-159/ <comment><USER2> I'm impressed with all of these. Amazon now has tablet pricing that smoothly ranges from $69 -> $499, an outstanding value on 4G service, a quality e-mail client story that includes ActiveSync, necessary touches like parental controls, a substantial app library, all of the one-click content you can handle, growing mindshare that isn't contaminated with the stink of 'Android', and genuine technical superiority over the market monolith in a few areas.

This is going to be an extremely popular lineup.

<comment><USER3> I am not sure if Kindle can be considered a "tablet". There is no media consumption possible on it except for text.

<comment><USER4> The Kindle Fire and its descendants are tablets with web browsing, app stores, games, etc based off of Android.

<comment><USER5> Yes, but $69 is for a regular e-ink Kindle. The tablets don't start until $159.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm cautious on their $50/yr LTE. It's definitely being subsidized somehow (as I seriously doubt AT&T is passing up $130/yr profit per customer, and not much room for profit margins for Amazon in that $500), the question is how? Using Silk to proxy all data? "Special Offers"?

EDIT: "Special Offers" confirmed, on all Kindles it seems. I won't be buying such a thing. <http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008GFRDL0/>

<comment><USER7> It's very low usage:

 _For 150MB of data access a month from AT &T, and 20 GB of cloud storage from Amazon, it costs $50 a year._

<comment><USER6> It's 250MB[0], and that same allotment on the iPad through AT&T is $15/mo[1], or $180/yr. Someone's making up the difference, or someone at AT&T is getting a rather concerned phone call from Tim Cook about now.

EDIT: For what it's worth, VZ's lowest iPad package is $20/mo for 1GB. If their costs were totally linear re: traffic (doubt it), the same package as above could be $5/mo ($60/yr) before any subsidy, and $10 is much easier for Amazon to make up than $130. It's entirely possible Amazon could have twisted AT&T down to this level, but not without AT&T getting heat from Apple in the process.

EDIT2: ...or the non-optional lockscreen ads may be helping Amazon's costs a bit.

[0] [http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/09/kindle- fires-4g-packa...](http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/09/kindle- fires-4g-package-offers-250mb-of-data-a-month-for-50-a-year/)

[1] [http://store.apple.com/us/buy/home/shop_ipad/family/ipad/new...](http://store.apple.com/us/buy/home/shop_ipad/family/ipad/new_ipad)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> HDMI out is the most overlooked feature. It will be awesome to hit play, walk to the kitchen, watch while cooking, then plug in to HD TV, sit down and continue watching uniterrupted.

Not to mention for presentations, showing photos or video at a party etc.

<comment><USER9> It's a nice feature, but in the long term, I expect AirPlay or a similar open standard (?) is going to be more important. Why plug your tablet into a cable if you don't have to?

<comment><USER10> Agreed, once you use Airplay you wonder why you would ever plug a device into a TV, seems archaic

<comment><USER8> Most Americans do not own Apple TV. I personally never will. That being said, in a few years WiDi or something else will allow this to happen in other devices.

<comment><USER11> It's not AirPlay - it's the concept of wireless "casting" the display to a complaint device - which may in the future be the TV itself (as you mentioned WiDi - though I think the first real competitor to AirPlay will come from Google not Intel).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Interesting that Android isn't mentioned at all. Is this tablet still based on Gingerbread or has it added some Honeycomb or Jelly Bean APIs? The biggest concern for app developers should be if Amazon is in the process of forking Android.

<comment><USER2> That's a developer discussion. Mentioning Android in a customer-facing presentation turns Kindle Fire into an "Android tablet" which telegraphs the message that it is techie crap they won't enjoy.

<comment><USER12> Customers would want to know what apps the thing can run. Will it be stuck running android's gingerbread apps forever while the rest of the android ecosystem moves on?

<comment><USER2> That's a good question but a non-question, since it 'officially' only runs apps from the Amazon App Store.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I think the 9" one is the most interesting tablet out of the bunch, because it's in the range of 9"-10", it has a "retina display" (just 9 PPI lower than the iPad 3) - and it costs just $300! That's crazy, and although I'm not interested in this specific tablet, because I'd rather have a full Android one, it's awesome that they are going to push others to match their pricing very soon for that size, too.

<comment><USER14> While I'm fully aware it goes against why Amazon is selling them, the 8.9" one is only interesting to me if I can blow away the Amazon OS and install stock Android 4.1 on it. The Amazon software is a big value-subtraction to me.

(I'm not expecting it to be possible--though eventually XDA will probably get it. Just that that's what I want out of my tablet and phone; it's why I use Nexus devices for my Android stuff.)

<comment><USER15> This tablet can run Android apps already, as far as I know. The OS is based on ICS.

<comment><USER16> It can only install apps from the Amazon marketplace which is significantly smaller than the play marketplace.

<comment><USER17> You can install regular ol' .apk files, so it's Google Play's issue and not the Kindle Fire's.

<http://www.ubergizmo.com/2011/11/kindle-fire-sideload/>

<comment><USER16> It's Android so of course you can side load apps. However it's a fork of Android and so it's not eligible to get access to Google's app ecosystem. This is a decision that Amazon made intentionally and knowing full well it would limit their customers access to android offerings via Google. They don't want their customers using third party marketplaces or video services as then Amazon is cut out of the payments.

<comment><USER17> > They don't want their customers using third party marketplaces or video > services as then Amazon is cut out of the payments

The integration into Amazon's ecosystem is a major selling feature, trying to fully tie it into two ecosystems would be a mess.

You can use other video services though, Netflix works great. For music there is Pandora and Spotify.

<comment><USER16> I don't see how this integration is a selling point, the price and the kindle branding seem to be it's biggest selling points. Everyone knows that kindle is synonymous with books at this point.

You can certainly use other services like Netflix, Hulu, Spotify or Pandora. Amazon probably loves that those apps are available for their device. The basic reason is that once you go looking for something not available on those other services (which happens frequently) your only other real choice is buying it from Amazon.

I have a fire, and it was immediately obvious within a few minutes it's designed around consuming content from Amazon and spending more money with them. While it would be absolutely a mess to fully support two app ecosystems I think it's naive to think that Amazon would have supported any system that didn't primarily direct funds back to them. They can sell these devices so cheaply as it doesn't matter if they profit from hardware. They've designed everything in such a way as to derive their revenue from sales of media.

<comment><USER17> > I don't see how this integration is a selling point, the price and the > kindle branding seem to be it's biggest selling points. Everyone knows that > kindle is synonymous with books at this point.

It's a selling point because it's easy and it's automatic. Similar to iOS. Out of the box you're ready to go and if you buy something one place it shows up in the other place too. If you're a Prime customer there is a ton of video content waiting for you for free. It's a walled garden, but other than Apple it's the most well done walled garden.

I'd prefer top of the line hardware with stock Android (mostly so I can test stuff), but that's not the business they're in. They made that very clear with Bezos stating they don't want to make money with selling their devices, they want to make money when you use them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Why doesn't it have the battery life listed at the bottom of Amazon.com's description of the fire HD?

Every other tablet they have has it listed.

<comment><USER18> Good catch. It's probably less than the 11h they announce for the 7" Fire HD. Unless nearly all of the 6oz weight difference is in the battery.

Speaking of which, "Weight 20 ounces (575 grams)" is rightly not touted in an otherwise very convincing siren call to those ready to enjoy the Amazon garden.

(Product page at <http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008GFRDL0/> )

<comment><USER8> Even worse is the non optional ads "Special Offers"... WTF?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I am definitely going to preorder the 8.9 inch model. It looks amazing, isn't based on Tegra 3 and the screen looks awesome. It sets itself apart from the Nexus 7 and iPad very well.

<comment><USER20> How's _not_ being based on quad-core tegra3 is a plus? As for battery life, the new Fire obviously doesn't have any hands-on reviews yet but nexus 7 battery life has been very solid according to all reviews.

<comment><USER19> If they based it on tegra 3 it would be very hard to understand, as a "techie", the differences between this and the collection of other tegra 3 products on the market. I think this helps set it apart from Google, rather than the instant retort of "its just a rebranded nexus 7"

<comment><USER20> That's a strange kind of argument for favoring something "as a techie". Wouldn't you be more excited by the two extra cores (not to mention the additional "phantom" core) that tegra 3 provides.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Do you guys think cyanogenmod could work on the LTE kindle with the cheap data plan and everything?

</comment><comment><USER11> Can these be bought outside the US? Looks like the data plan on the LTE model at least is US-only.

</comment><comment><USER22> I think the iPad Mini is an absolute certainty at this point.

<comment><USER23> With a similar processor (though better GPU) and a much lower resolution display...</comment></comment>


Imperative Reasoning Is Hard - <AUTHOR> http://liamoc.net/posts/2013-11-13-imperativereasoning.html? <comment><USER2> This is the type of article that makes HN worth reading regularly. Eloquently written and accessible but at the same time going deep down into fundamental issues.

If we could have one article of this quality a week we'd be very lucky indeed.</comment>


Programming Adventure Game Else Heart.Break() Is Out on Steam, Humble and GOG - <AUTHOR> http://www.elseheartbreak.com/ <comment><USER2> This is amazing.</comment>


The Instagram Community - One Million and Counting - <AUTHOR> http://instagr.am/blog/3/instagram-one-million-users

<comment><USER2> Now make with the revenue.

Release some filter packs for 99 cents each and hopefully benefit from the 10-30% of your user base that will purchases some.

After the initial rush AOL will buy you for 40 million.

</comment><comment><USER3> 1 million users and zero revenue. Why is this good?

<comment><USER4> I agree. I have a small app that has about 1,200 users and I make $30 per day in iAd revenue. Assuming similar numbers, Instagram could easily have $25k per day in revenue.

<comment><USER5> Unless the ad drove away users, in which case they might only have 1200 users and $30 a day.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Congratulations to Instagram!

> We decided that if we were going to build a company, we wanted to focus on > being really good at one thing. We saw mobile photos as an awesome > opportunity to try out some new ideas. We spent 1 week prototyping a version > that focused solely on photos. It was pretty awful. So we went back to > creating a native version of Burbn. We actually got an entire version of > Burbn done as an iPhone app, but it felt cluttered, and overrun with > features. It was really difficult to decide to start from scratch, but we > went out on a limb, and basically cut everything in the Burbn app except for > its photo, comment, and like capabilities. What remained was Instagram. (We > renamed because we felt it better captured what you were doing -- an instant > telegram of sorts. It also sounded camera-y)

[http://www.quora.com/Instagram/What-is-the-story-behind- Inst...](http://www.quora.com/Instagram/What-is-the-story-behind-Instagram)

</comment><comment><USER7> Maybe it's because I don't have an iPhone, or a smart phone, but I seriously don't understand instagram's insane adoption/appeal.

It seems bizarre and not novel in any way. Mobile sharing has been around forever, and even my 2005 feature phone has filters built into it. Someone enlighten me.

</comment><comment><USER8> I love the app, but they should publish active user count - if any number at all. It really matters for an app with no little web presence and little content persistence.

</comment><comment><USER9> Any word on an Android app?

<comment> joe-mccann Poladroid appears to be the front-running competitor to Instagram as Poladroid is currently Android only as Instagram is iPhone only.

<http://poladroid.me> (private beta)

Easter egg on the site.

<comment><USER10> How on earth is this name not copyright infringement? Either against Polaroid itself or against the Poladroid software package (<http://www.poladroid.net/>). That said it's a pretty cute pun; I hope they get away with it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> It's a great app.

</comment><comment><USER12> A million users in under three months is impressive. Now, how long before the critical 10M mark?</comment>


Feedback wanted: Docker for Rails Developers book - <AUTHOR> I'd love to get some help. I'm working on a new book: "Docker for Rails Developers", but I want to make sure I'm covering the things that people really want to know.
If you've heard of Docker, or even dabbled with it, but aren't using it regularly, I'd love to get your thoughts. I've written a tiny survey (only 1 question and should take seconds). I'd really appreciate it if you'd share your thoughts: http://bit.ly/29FPPdz
Also, if you're experienced with Docker, I'd love to hear from you with any tips/secrets/best practices for using it with Ruby apps/Microservices in either dev or prod environments (or both). You can reply here, or email@example.com.
Thanks so much.
p.s. I've thrown up a minimal landing page at http://DockerForRailsDevelopers.com where you can sign up for occasional progress updates. <comment><USER2> Some advice:

\+ My understanding is that the Hacker News ranking algorithm penalizes posts that aren't links to keep it from being used as a blog. So it might be better to write up a blog post about the book and submit that instead.

\+ My observation is that book authors who write useful informative blog posts about their topic [rather than obvious promotional collateral] tend to be better received by the HN community, though like everything else, those posts stand I high chance of passing mostly unnoticed.

\+ My observation is that external surveys rarely receive much consideration from the HN community relative to interesting blog posts.

\+ Samples preceding the email harvesting would probably stand a better chance of peeking the vistor's interest in the book...showing potential readers that the book is worth reading is worth considering.

Good luck.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your thoughts - I appreciate it.

Yep, I take your point. This is my first time with this so still very much finding my way. :)

I'm still in very early stages, so I was after some early feedback though to make sure I'm not "writing blind" and just guessing what people what to know about.

But I think you're right... some informative blog posts are probably the way to go.

Thanks again.

<comment><USER2> I'm probably biased since I can't help but type, but writing and getting feedback is how I seem to improve my writing. As for writing blind, a blog post is sort of a "minimum viable product".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> study your competition: [https://leanpub.com/rails-on- docker](https://leanpub.com/rails-on-docker)

use a complex rails app, one that uses redis/sidekiq. how to handle logging when running multiple instances of the rails app.

dockerizing the CI pipeline using jenkins...etc.</comment>


How We Scaled The Concierge MVP - <AUTHOR> http://blog.suitey.com/how-we-scaled-the-concierge-mvp-experience

<comment><USER2> Interesting thought about the e-mails. It seems like salesforce or zoho would also be perfectly adequate for scaling customer service. Have you tried those?</comment>