ThenAsNow (u/ThenAsNow)

ThenAsNow commented on Temu pulls its U.S. Google Shopping ads searchengineland.com/temu... · Posted by u/rexbee

True. The biggest impediment to increased manufacturing is the pile of onerous regulations, many of which were created by the stroke of a pen since 2008, and which can be removed by another stroke of the pen.

ThenAsNow · a year ago

Do you have any substantiation for either the point that onerous regulations are the primary impediment or that most of these have been created since 2008 (by fiat or otherwise)?

It's always going to be cheaper to make things in places where labor costs and environmental responsibility expectations are low.

ThenAsNow commented on A Note on the Changing Faces of (D)ARPA freaktakes.com/p/a-note-o... · Posted by u/rbanffy

hinkley · a year ago

The lowest bidder thing has always upset me. Either they are delusional or they are lying. If they understand the domain, they are going to sell you a system they built for someone else. Or they think the system they build for you can be resold to someone with deeper pockets. In which case they will push and push for you not to make it too niche.

Sometimes prebuilt is exactly what you need, but only sometimes, and that’s not what you paid for.

ThenAsNow · a year ago

There are different solicitation types. Not everything is Lowest Price, Technically Acceptable (LPTA). LPTA is not usually the solicitation types for anything R&D. It's more for "commodities", like tires, or bids against things with very detailed specs, like construction/infrastructure projects.

That said, it's a fair criticism that procurement specs are often poorly written, and the evaluation processes insufficiently rigorous.

ThenAsNow commented on Matrix 2.0 Is Here matrix.org/blog/2024/10/2... · Posted by u/ptman

ThenAsNow · a year ago

Good job penalizing this project lead of an ambitious open source project for his engagement with the community.

Obviously, needless dicklike comments can only help the project and its users.

ThenAsNow commented on Broadwell's EDRAM: VCache Before VCache Was Cool chipsandcheese.com/p/broa... · Posted by u/klelatti

pclmulqdq · a year ago

EDRAM was very different, and IBM still uses it today. It is DRAM that is on the same die as the cores, which makes it far slower than AMD's VCache (which is SRAM). The concept is the same - putting a huge amount of cache on chip - but it's a very different solution.

The Intel solution was also not 3D stacked. It's a little like having an HBM stack next to the chip as a cache.

ThenAsNow · a year ago

I was confused by the use of "EDRAM" vs. "eDRAM" here and by the HN capitalization of the original article.

The EDRAM I'm familiar with, by a company called Ramtron and later Enhanced Memory Systems, seems to be largely lost to history. It's discussed in this relatively recent presentation, see slide 16 onward: https://site.ieee.org/pikespeak/files/2020/08/Silcon-Mountai...

ThenAsNow commented on XFS maintainer, Darrik Wong, steps down lore.kernel.org/linux-xfs... · Posted by u/muxator

pengaru · 3 years ago

  > commit 721a0edfbe1f302b93274ce75e0d62843ca63e0d
  > Author: Darrick J. Wong <darrick.wong@oracle.com>
  > Date:   Tue Jan 3 18:39:34 2017 -0800
  >
  >     xfs: update MAINTAINERS
  > 
  >     I am taking over as XFS maintainer from Dave Chinner[1], so update
  >     contact information and git tree pointers.
  > 
  >     [1] http://lkml.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/1612.1/04390.html
  > 
  >     Signed-off-by: Darrick J. Wong <darrick.wong@oracle.com>
  >

ThenAsNow · 3 years ago

Interesting, thanks!

ThenAsNow commented on XFS maintainer, Darrik Wong, steps down lore.kernel.org/linux-xfs... · Posted by u/muxator

ThenAsNow · 3 years ago

Wow, I'm way out of date - when did Dave Chinner step down as XFS maintainer?

ThenAsNow commented on libjpeg-turbo 3.0 has been released, and why there may never be a 3.1 groups.google.com/g/libjp... · Posted by u/rettichschnidi

Someone · 3 years ago

>> It seems like source available type licenses (e.g., Kyle Mitchell's Big Time license: https://bigtimelicense.com/ ) are a reasonable middle ground for being paid software without giving up many of the benefits of open source

> They're not reasonable at all. They deceive users and leach off of the good name of open source

I disagree. Source available licenses are reasonable, but not “a middle ground for being paid software without giving up many of the benefits of open source”.

Reading the https://bigtimelicense.com/ and https://bigtimelicense.com/versions/2.0.1, though, I don’t think that’s a source available license. It doesn’t mention source code at all.

It’s a license that allows small entities to use a binary for free, and promises larger companies to give “fair, reasonable and nondiscriminatory terms” (I guess that’s in the license to ‘guarantee’ smaller companies they will be able to get such a license and that they will be able to afford it. IANAL, but I think the “nondiscriminatory” guarantees the former, but “fair and reasonable” doesn’t fully guarantee the latter)

“Source available” is more or less the reverse: it guarantees you can view the source, but doesn’t necessarily give you the right to modify or even compile it (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Source-available_software)

ThenAsNow · 3 years ago

We probably need better, consistent terminology for different types of "not all the freedoms of open source but not proprietary secret source either", the way "open source" means something very specific.

The Wikipedia page you cited opens with "Source-available software is software released through a source code distribution model that includes arrangements where the source can be viewed, and in some cases modified, but without necessarily meeting the criteria to be called open-source."

So by this definition, "source available" is a superset of FOSS, but not specific enough to imply what the user can and can't do with the source code. It makes sense to name classes of license within the "source available" umbrella that spell out what freedoms are restricted/preserved.

The Big Time license is not specific as to whether the covered software is provided in source or binary form, and is easily applied to source code distributions. Probably the reason I associated this license with "source available" is the primary license author is a prominent U.S. lawyer involved with open source and I'm pretty confident it is written to be applicable to source code even if it is not explicit about it. Similarly, the BSD license doesn't require that the license be attached to source code - one could release binary-only software under the BSD license.

ThenAsNow commented on libjpeg-turbo 3.0 has been released, and why there may never be a 3.1 groups.google.com/g/libjp... · Posted by u/rettichschnidi

josephcsible · 3 years ago

> How do they do that if they don't call themselves open source (or "Open Source (TM)" if you prefer) in the first place?

First of all, some of them DO call themselves that even though they unambiguously aren't. And even for the ones that don't, they usually try to sound as similar as possible to it and downplay the differences.

> Regardless, something needs to be done about the sustainability gap in open source other than writing messages like what's linked.

That feels like the politician's fallacy. We need to do something, and switching to fauxpen source is something, but that doesn't mean we need to switch to fauxpen source.

> The inability of your project to incorporate someone else's code shouldn't consign the rest of us to not have the benefits of access to that someone else's code outside of a proprietary binary.

It's not just one project that can't. If a given bit of code isn't open source, then NO open source projects can incorporate it.

ThenAsNow · 3 years ago

> First of all, some of them DO call themselves that even though they unambiguously aren't. And even for the ones that don't, they usually try to sound as similar as possible to it and downplay the differences.

There was understandably uproar about things like the "Commons Clause" and similar attempts to retrofit obligations to pay onto open source licenses. I have no disagreement with rejecting these as misrepresentations of open source. But if no such misrepresentation takes place, this line of objection is bogus. I gave an example of one license that does not misrepresent itself in such a way. I'm sure there are others and if not, attempts should perhaps be made to develop others, just as we have multiple open source licenses available.

>> Regardless, something needs to be done about the sustainability gap in open source other than writing messages like what's linked.

> That feels like the politician's fallacy. We need to do something, and switching to fauxpen source is something, but that doesn't mean we need to switch to fauxpen source.

I regret my phrasing, "something needs to be done," which does indeed sound like a politician. So let me rephrase. There is an axis, with proprietary secret source code and FOSS anchoring the ends. This axis is a good proxy for monetizability, but the axis itself is about freedom. With secret source, no user gets any benefit from the source. Source available, is, to me, a genuinely constructive attempt to address the need for developers to be compensated, while still giving users many of the benefits of access to the source.

I don't think source available is going to be something we "switch to" so much as, if some developers need income from the code they put out there, this is a far more user-centric option than telling everyone to download binaries for platforms they may or may not use and submit themselves to intrusive license checks. If you want to get a job at a RedHat or Collabora or try to have your employer cover your open source time instead, more power to you, source available certainly doesn't stand in the way of that.

> It's not just one project that can't. If a given bit of code isn't open source, then NO open source projects can incorporate it.

Open source projects have no hope of incorporating secret source software either. At least with source available, users can look at the code, make changes, build it themselves, and if they fit whatever "gratis" criteria are a part of the license, they don't have to pay either.

ThenAsNow commented on libjpeg-turbo 3.0 has been released, and why there may never be a 3.1 groups.google.com/g/libjp... · Posted by u/rettichschnidi

josephcsible · 3 years ago

They're not reasonable at all. They deceive users and leach off of the good name of open source while preventing any actual open source projects from incorporating any of their code. I'm hoping there's a notable drop in adoption of licenses like them.

ThenAsNow · 3 years ago

> They deceive users and leach off of the good name of open source

How do they do that if they don't call themselves open source (or "Open Source (TM)" if you prefer) in the first place?

Regardless, something needs to be done about the sustainability gap in open source other than writing messages like what's linked. The inability of your project to incorporate someone else's code shouldn't consign the rest of us to not have the benefits of access to that someone else's code outside of a proprietary binary.

ThenAsNow commented on libjpeg-turbo 3.0 has been released, and why there may never be a 3.1 groups.google.com/g/libjp... · Posted by u/rettichschnidi

DannyBee · 3 years ago

I guess I'll be contrarian.

Being a commercial product is hard. Having customers, supporting them, etc is very hard. Most can't sustain themselves either. Especially when competing with open source.

Every time I read about "criminal underfunding" of open source, it comes off as people wanting to be able to capture some of the value of being commercial without any of the cost. Being open source means more people use your software. But they owe you nothing at all for that. Enough value to pay themselves to work on it is not a small amount of value, and most commercial software doesn't make it there either.

If you want people to pay then be paid software. Otherwise you often just want a contract with terms nobody wants to pay you for. There is nothing abnormal about that, and it's certainly not "criminal underfunding".

I'm sorry it's not as easy as people want it to be, but it never was - this isn't new, and it not likely to be anytime soon.

The main difference now seems to be how many more people feel their users should have greater responsibility than they require of them. That's one of the things that often makes your product popular though.

ThenAsNow · 3 years ago

> If you want people to pay then be paid software.

It seems like source available type licenses (e.g., Kyle Mitchell's Big Time license: https://bigtimelicense.com/ ) are a reasonable middle ground for being paid software without giving up many of the benefits of open source.

I'm hoping there's a notable uptick in adoption of licenses like these.