EPA website removes climate science site from public view after two decades - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/04/28/epa-website-removes-climate-science-site-from-public-view-after-two-decades <comment><USER2> The capitalists who funded the mass propaganda effort to deny the reality of climate change - what is their endgame? Are they simply hoping to maintain the status quo as long as possible and bleed the planet (and public) dry in the meantime?

In 50 years time, when things go seriously south for mankind and the history of our era is written, our children and grandchildren are going to regard us with the utmost contempt. As for the Kochs and Trumps of the world, what could possibly be a fair reaction to the people who destroyed the planet? A bloody uprising followed by a complete overthrow of the system? Perhaps the ruling class think that by that point they will have enough systems of control in place to keep themselves comfortable as civilization collapses around them, a la Children Of Men.

I'm not sure the gravity of the evil has quite sunk in yet. We are witnessing the worst, most venal, most corrupt behavior that mankind has ever partaken. It is quite spectacular.

<comment><USER3> Disingenuous question, let me explain why. The biggest effect by far resulting from climate change legislation has not been the reduction of CO2 emissions, it has been the migration of manufacturing from developed nations to China.

Unfortunately, developed nations are mostly powered by oil with significant nuclear power added. China isn't. China is powered by coal. Coal produces something like 10x more CO2 per unit of energy (kWh) compared to oil, and about 200x more than nuclear. So climate change accords have systematically worsened CO2 output rather than improving it, while destroying already severely damaged manufacturing industries in the developed world.

With predictable results: [http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.PC](http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.PC) (climate accords were signed in 1992, 2011 and 2015)

The answer to your question is to lower further damage to industries in the US and Europe and thereby will both improve the economics of the situation and actually lower CO2 output.

So your question is about as fair as asking why climate activists keep destroying the world and what their long term plan is.

(e.g. Here are how the people "improving" climate actually act: [http://dailycaller.com/2015/12/03/paris-un-global-warming- su...](http://dailycaller.com/2015/12/03/paris-un-global-warming-summit-at- private-airport/) \- Claiming that these people actually care and agree that changing our ways to make things better for the environment is ... well, let's just say I see some arguments against that viewpoint)

<comment><USER4> You are inferring that people who negotiated the Paris agreements don't really care about the environment because the conference center they met at is located at an airport? Seriously?

<comment><USER5> The Daily Caller article gets a little distracted with its hissy-fit about luxury, and neglects to state the actual problem, which is that air travel is the most energy- and CO2-intensive travel method per person-mile. Obviously moreso if you're alone on your own private jet, but it's still the worst mode, even when you're sandwiched in on a chock-full commercial flight. It's the dirty secret of these climate conferences. The criticism of the Paris meeting is valid on that basis.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> History repeats itself, in an amplified manner. At least in the era of galileo the general population's prevailing world view was being challenged by new science and evidence. This is backwards, the science has been proven decades ago, countries' policies are being amended to counter the effects. Except in America, and the Middle East. Unlikely bedfellows in science denial.

<comment><USER7> The US government denied science before when it came gun control, birth control, abortion and cannabis, so this is just the next step backwards.

<comment><USER8> Which "science" has been denied about gun control? The question of gun rights is a moral one not scientific.

<comment><USER9> The morality of guns is affected by their impact. If nobody every died from a gun who would if anyone owned one? But the US congress specifically barred federal collection of data on gun deaths so that no factual conclusions could be drawn.

<comment><USER10> Do you have a citation for that? I've not heard of this and I follow the issue relatively closely. I also find gun death stats pretty widely available and broken down to pretty small geographical areas from various governmental (not necessarily just federal though) and non-governmental organizations.

I do remember having read that a lot of law enforcement agencies don't collect, or collect in a way that makes it hard to tabulate shootings by officers- but a) I don't have a cite for that, it was a while ago, and b) that's also up to individual enforcement agencies, not federal.

<comment><USER9> Umm, it's not a secret or obscure law that bars the CDC from studying gun impact:

\- [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dickey_Amendment_(1996)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dickey_Amendment_\(1996\))

\- The Congressman Who Restricted Gun Violence Research Has Regrets: [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/jay-dickey-gun- violence-...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/jay-dickey-gun-violence- research-amendment_us_561333d7e4b022a4ce5f45bf)

\- The ban has supposedly been lifted: [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/storyline/wp/2015/01/14/...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/storyline/wp/2015/01/14/why- the-cdc-still-isnt-researching-gun-violence-despite-the-ban-being-lifted-two- years-ago/?utm_term=.67cc74189cad)

\- Some more history: [http://www.apa.org/science/about/psa/2013/02/gun- violence.as...](http://www.apa.org/science/about/psa/2013/02/gun- violence.aspx)

\- some background: [http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik- gun-re...](http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-gun-research- funding-20160614-snap-story.html)

And I love this entry on a blog site (Forbes): Why The Centers For Disease Control Should Not Receive Gun Research Funding: [https://www.forbes.com/sites/larrybell/2013/02/12/why-the- ce...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/larrybell/2013/02/12/why-the-centers-for- disease-control-should-not-receive-gun-research-funding/#579695b5282d)

The reasoning? "There was a very good reason for the gun violence research funding ban. Virtually all of the scores of CDC-funded firearms studies conducted since 1985 had reached conclusions favoring stricter gun control. "

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> What actions can I take as a US citizen to fight this level of ignorance? I feel like calling or emailing my representative will yield no results. Does anyone have some ideas on what can be done by the average Bob?

<comment><USER12> Nothing. It's only collective action that will solve anything, and whatever culture that pops up will get a near equal reaction from the other side. The US is trending to splitting down the middle on everything, just like our political system, a fact which is sadly getting more entrenched every day. Only thing I can think of is find a way to support independent local government officials and slowly kill the bipartisan system.

<comment><USER13> Regarding this "other side."

Isn't there an asymmetry here?

I mean, aren't the people who see climate change as a DEFCON 1 emergency way more motivated to support environmental causes than the... um people who think it's a hoax are to oppose it?

Are there people (not oligarchs) who really _oppose_ environmental causes? Or isn't it just bundled up with all of the GOP's other value propositions? And the constituents just include it because tribalism?

 _edit_ : my point is that it's us versus the oligarchs. This is not something like guns or abortion or hell even fiscal policy where individuals are going to dig in their heels. This issue is less partisan in that respect. I don't think it's a big deal to the right beyond being a part of their caricature of the left. Sure, some have bought the narrative that the economics are somehow bad for US. But that's a weak and indirect point, and one that just isn't going to activate grassroots opposition.

<comment><USER14> The opposition does not oppose climate because they are anti-environment. In their minds, as I understand, climate change is a _pretext_ for more government control, taxes, and intrusion, and those are indeed reasons that make the people dig in their heels.

<comment><USER15> They've been conned. Burson-Marsteller developed the basic strategy, and Philip Morris implemented it as the National Smokers Alliance. It worked well enough that the Koch Brothers worked with them on The Tea Party.[0] And now we have Trump. Ain't life grand?

0) [http://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/23/4/322](http://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/23/4/322)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> There are websites such as [https://www.datarefuge.org/](https://www.datarefuge.org/) (Building refuge for federal climate & environmental data) which have archived the data. Sad nevertheless.

There are also files on archive.org, but I feel they are harder to find and browse. E.g. [https://archive.org/details/ClimateChangeUSEPA](https://archive.org/details/ClimateChangeUSEPA) or [https://archive.org/details/perma_cc_JTL9-NV3L](https://archive.org/details/perma_cc_JTL9-NV3L)

</comment><comment><USER17> Sounds pretty damn Orwellian when the Environmental Protection Agency isn't interested in protecting the environment anymore.

<comment><USER18> Ministry of Love.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Most Americans (70%) think climate change is real.

A large portion thinks it isn't made by men though.

[http://climatecommunication.yale.edu/visualizations- data/yco...](http://climatecommunication.yale.edu/visualizations-data/ycom- us-2016/)

<comment><USER19> Specifically, 53% of people think it IS being caused by humans, whereas 32% think it's by natural causes.

<comment><USER18> Yes, and only 40% believe it harms them personally.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Hey, no surprise here. Just gotta get to the next screen. Maybe just a 4-8 year slog. Or maybe something truly dramatic will happen. Clathrate gun, or whatever. We live in interesting times.</comment>


From Fusion to Octopart and Back - <AUTHOR> https://blog.octopart.com/archives/2014/10/from-fusion-to-octopart-and-back

<comment><USER2> Reminds of Seymour Cray's response on being told that Apple Computer had just bought a Cray to help design the next Apple Macintosh, and Cray then commented that he had just bought a Macintosh to design the next Cray. - [http://www.computer.org/portal/web/awards/seymourbio](http://www.computer.org/portal/web/awards/seymourbio)

</comment><comment><USER3> This is a little off topic, but a few years ago when I was trying to put together my first startup, Sam spent an hour on the phone with me (some nobody from upstate NY) going through what it would take for me to move from my idea to a real company. The startup ultimately failed (many lessons were learned) and I'm in SF now but I still remember the incredible act of generosity that hour was. Thanks, Sam!

</comment><comment><USER4> Octopart has always inspired me. Just one of those quiet, confident, heads down YC companies we can be proud to call a peer. Sam - this is such an awesome story - thanks for sharing

<comment><USER5> Thanks Matt!

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Octopart is a site I use almost daily. It's a great great thing. Kudos to them.

</comment><comment><USER7> As someone who has been thinking of leaving physics graduate school (and I've been "running" simulations of plasmas too), this is somewhat encouraging.

</comment><comment><USER8> This was really touching. Not only a physicist, but a poet as well.</comment>


Completing Racket's relicensing effort - <AUTHOR> https://blog.racket-lang.org/2019/11/completing-racket-s-relicensing-effort.html <comment><USER2> It's not clear from the title I think, but this actually was a multi-year undertaking, "This has been a long process, beginning in 2017".

I made some small contributions to Racket's SSH library personally, and I was happy to consent to relicensing. I think most people who contribute docs/code to projects like this did it because it was something _they_ needed implemented, so it would be counter-productive to ask for it to be removed, IMO.

</comment><comment><USER3> _Two people declined to re-license their contributions to Racket. We therefore removed their contributions and, where appropriate, replaced them with new code and /or documentation._

Is that actually allowed by the GPL? I thought it was more like the "Ship of Theseus" \- that even if you eventually replace all the original GPL code, the entire work remains GPLed. [https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/2603...](https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/260347/ship- of-theseus-applied-to-gpl-can-i-relicense-my-program-if-i-replace-all-of)

<comment><USER4> The GPL relies on copyright as far as I understand.

The two declining authors don't have copyright on the new replacement code, because they didn't write it. So their choice of license can't possibly have any bearing on the license of the rest of the project.

A similar thing happened when the busybox maintainer forked the project to toybox.

busybox is a GPLv2 project (not LPGL), and so all his contributions were licensed as such. But he forked his own code to a Apache 2 License. He is able to do that because he owns the copyright. But of course he can't relicense code to which he doesn't own the copyright.

toybox isn't a derivative work of busybox in that sense. It's just a bunch of code that someone wrote (and automatically gets copyright for), and chose to license in a certain way.

Basically you get the copyright first, then you decide to license it. If it's clearer to think about, the authors could have started a new project called "Zacket" that's not a derivative work of Racket, as long as they own all the copyrights. But the name doesn't matter here, and they can keep using "Racket".

That's my understanding anyway.

<comment><USER5> Does Racket use a DVCS? A git checkout involves making a copy of every historical version in addition to the current one, so their code is still being distributed. If a lawyer wanted to make trouble, they could argue that the repository as a whole is a single work and thus must remain on the GPL.

<comment><USER6> Each version presented by the VCS contains a copy of the GPL.

The GPL for Version 1 (example) would be presented if you checked it out and if you check out Version 2 it's now an Apache 2 license. The license in each case applies to the files in the VCS, a the GPL contains no special case for access to previous or future versions of the same file under it's license under the GPL license, neither does the Apache license and I doubt such a clause would hold water.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> >Did anyone say no?

>Two people declined to re-license their contributions to Racket.

Although it is entirely within their right, it baffles me why anyone would say no. At the end of the day, it's still open source, and the more important bits are still LGPL. I'm personally within that camp that prefers MIT licensed code. I don't think forced freedom is truly freedom (thinking of the GPL here).

Edit: I much rather have the right to allow others to copy over being forced to allow everyone to copy even if I rework an entire project.

<comment><USER8> MIT style licenses provide 'snapshot freedom'. The code is a collection of text files at one point of time.

GPL license is additionally a share agreement. If the code is also an valuable asset that requires constant development, update and contributions to stay alive, GPL can help with that.

I would personally would prefer GPL-license under organization that can sell different licenses. If a company don't want to use GPL, they can buy commercial license and developers get money.

<comment><USER9> > I would personally would prefer GPL-license under organization that can sell > different licenses. If a company don't want to use GPL, they can buy > commercial license and developers get money.

At first blush that idea makes sense, but the problem there is that we've already tried that, and it failed miserably.

I think that one fundamental problem that would need addressing is how to make it not a PITA to administer, and a hassle for everyone involved: Maintainers of small projects aren't necessarily looking to embark on a proper business enterprise, contributors don't necessarily want to have to digest the implications of the license, _nobody_ wants to figure out how royalties for contributors would work - and with people potentially getting paid directly for the software, that's going to be a much thornier issue to negotiate than it is with the "closed source derivative works" thing that you get with permissive licenses - and licensees don't necessarily want to deal with an explosion of payments to manage.

I also suspect there's a sort of prisoner's dilemma from the business perspective. If we all share some permissively licensed open source projects, we can all come out ahead and achieve a very efficient pooling of development resources. If someone wants to go dual GPL/commercial, though, it may well be cheaper for me to implement my own version of the, say, 5% of some library that I actually need, than it is for me to pay a commercial license fee for the whole thing.

<comment><USER10> you are building a straw-man version of an unworkable payment system.

it would be totally doable for the project to say

1) we are GPL licensed

2) if you can't use GPL we will sell you a license for $X

3) all proceeds go to the project.

4) if you contribute, you give us the right to do this, and retain the funds that are generated.

Dual licensing really could be a silver bullet, but because nobody has done it well (for some reason people want to use MIT + commercial), nobody understands how powerful it could be.

<comment><USER9> > 3) all proceeds go to the project.

This is the spot where I see it becoming a sticking point. What is "the project"? For it to be an independent entity, you need to incorporate, which, at the very least, costs money, and is therefore a huge barrier to taking this route for a small project. And it's almost by definition a small project if it's in a position to be making this decision. And if it's not an independent entity, then "the project" is probably just a euphemism for one person's pocketbook. Maybe with some pinky swearing layered on top. In any case, you've also got an image problem, because a lot of people are going to be skittish about a GPL/commercial model after what happened with MySQL and some of the other open source projects that fell into Oracle's hands.

You could instead set up a legal entity that pools the resources of several projects, and let it be the commercial vendor. That might even, in a parallel universe, have been a plausible funding model for the FSF. But even there it's probably tricky, because you still need to have some way of deciding what to do with the surplus. Having once served on the board of a nonprofit, I can say that that's tricky at the best of times, and it's probably only worse if you're talking some sort of open source foundation, because open source community members tend to get along like cats in a sack.

Long story short: While I never said that something like this was unworkable, I do think that, given how badly it tended to work out when people were trying to figure out how to make it work a couple decades ago, it would seem to be much harder to get right than it initially seems.

<comment><USER11> > you need to incorporate, which, at the very least, costs money

A nice (maybe impossible or impractical) idea would be to sell commercial licenses with eventual future payments.

As in the commercial license states an estimated price and a clause saying that at any time (with some months of notice) the price will be set to somewhere up to the estimated price. If the project chooses an higher price then the licensee is free to not pay. This would also allow prospective licensee to estimate future expenses and the project to estimate eventual revenue.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> _First, it is unclear how to apply the LGPL's statement about dynamic linking to a language like Racket, where macro expansion can copy code from libraries to applications, and where applications are typically bundled with the Racket runtime and libraries. Second, some organizations unfortunately are unwilling to use software licensed under any variant of the GPL._

I wonder if this simplifies the Racket-on-Chez effort in any way as well.

<comment><AUTHOR> Racket CS works similarly to traditional Racket in this respect -- compiled libraries still contain the results of macro-expansion and inlining from their dependencies, and generated executables still bundle everything together in a way that's not easy to re-link.

It's more the other direction that's a benefit -- traditional Racket makes fundamental use of several pieces of LGPL software, such as GNU Lightning and libgmp, but Racket CS does not use them and Chez Scheme is Apache-licensed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> TL;DR

 _Why relicense?_

 _... First, it is unclear how to apply the LGPL's statement about dynamic linking to a language like Racket, where macro expansion can copy code from libraries to applications, and where applications are typically bundled with the Racket runtime and libraries. Second, some organizations unfortunately are unwilling to use software licensed under any variant of the GPL._

The first, dynamic linking exception, could maybe be patched up with some effort by FSF resulting in a new LGPL license. The second is more of a developers voting with their feet thing.

<comment><USER14> > The first, dynamic linking exception, could maybe be patched up with some > effort by FSF resulting in a new LGPL license.

The Common Lisp world already has something like this, the "LLGPL"[1], but it's use is discouraged[1] because (among other reasons):

> 2\. In 2004, the Free Software foundation affirmed that "the LGPL works as > intended with all known programming languages" and that "LGPL contains no > special provisions for inheritance, because none are needed." There is no > need for the linking and inheritance provisions that are in the [LLGPL].

1: [https://www.cliki.net/LLGPL](https://www.cliki.net/LLGPL)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Why do projects dual-license under MIT and APLv2? All the additional clauses of the APLv2 like patent protection are useless if you also license under MIT.

<comment><USER16> Consumers of the project can use either MIT or Apache-2.0, which means the project is compatible with GPLv2 code.

Contributors contribute their code granting permission to use under both licenses, which means they're granting the patent grant in Apache-2.0.

So, dual-licensing MIT/Apache-2.0 gives you a permissive license with a patent grant and GPLv2-compatibility.

That said, if you want a permissive license with a patent grant and GPLv2-compatibility, a simpler choice is the "BSD+Patent" [https://opensource.org/licenses/BSDplusPatent](https://opensource.org/licenses/BSDplusPatent) license, which is just 2-clause BSD plus the Apache-2.0 patent grant.

<comment><USER17> It's a pretty bad licensing arrangement, actually. I'm honestly surprised the Racket community didn't consider just adding a license exception to the LGPL.

Alternatively, ASL 2.0 with exceptions could have worked to make it compatible with the full assortment of GNU licenses. That's the strategy that CUPS and LLVM chose.

This weird MIT/ASL 2.0 thing (which clearly was stolen from Rust) is a completely asinine idea, because it forces a situation where it's impossible to verify a patent license grant to users and contributors.</comment></comment></comment>