Notices by wizzwizz4 (wizzwizz4@fosstodon.org)

@SuperDicq @mangeurdenuage And, like, I'm going to be around and contactable for the next few decades at least. If GPLv4 comes out, and someone tells me about it, I can review it and decide whether to relicense my software.

If I get hit by a bus, whoever inherits the copyright can deal with that. If they don't want to bother, well, I do trust the Software Freedom Conservancy.

@mangeurdenuage @SuperDicq Given how you phrased that, I expect I'll disagree with your assessment. But, I haven't heard about this. What happened?

@mangeurdenuage @SuperDicq I'm familiar with that. I somewhat agree, but I believe you've misrepresented the situation, and I'm not sure why you're holding the Software Freedom Conservancy culpable.

The later (and earlier) criticisms of Richard Stallman are valid. Indeed, criticisms about his opinions on that very topic are also valid! Taking one quote out of context "as evidence" of reprehensible views, is not however acceptable.

@adora Honestly, i wouldn't be surprised if @keyoxide added support for whatever @lina settled on.

@adora @lina @keyoxide Comments? (see thread)

@codesections @martijn I would have done that, too. But if you're not reconfiguring your IDE, just do whatever and then run an autoformatter afterwards – assuming the autoformatter is clever enough to understand tabs for indentation / spaces for alignment.

@lapcatsoftware Clean and simple *programs* are a myth, though it is often possible to produce clean and simple *tools*, that make writing real programs easier.

It is also possible, on occasion, to produce powerful libraries with clean interfaces. If they abstract over, or even interact with, the real world, they're going to be complex inside, but that doesn't mean they can't be clean.

Python's urllib.request.HTTPRedirectHandler demonstrates all this quite well.

@alcinnz People still cooperate with each other: even the worst Google-pushed web standards still get feedback from Mozilla people, and often the core-js guy as well. Sure, sometimes we get things like <portal> or Google AMP, but the W3C still exists and is still relevant.

Note that Google Chrome contains proprietary software, and even Firefox contains proprietary components. (Contrast browsers like Dillo, NetSurf and Lynx.) So this area isn't quite an exception to @drewdevault's claim.

@lightweight I wonder whether there's anyone running a mailing list like this, but providing more useful, ethical, single-edged advice.

@alcinnz Problems I have experienced:

• I haven't always had access to an email address. (I'm not yet cool enough to self-host.) Email-address-based workflows are a barrier for baby-young programmers, in a way that not even GitHub is.
• I never know whether it's going to publish my email address publicly (something I would rather not happen) or, worse, edit my commits to *insert* my email address (when I explicitly did not provide that in the patch).
• Many email clients are bad.

@alcinnz Okay, looking at it more closely? That's definitely Horner's evaluation method, implementing a Taylor series expansion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taylor_series

I recommend trying to solve this problem yourself, though, rather than looking at Wikipedia. It's a simple, fun piece of mathematics – and as with all mathematics, you can only discover it once:

Using algebra, find the polynomials f(x) where f(0)=sin(0). Then, add the condition f'(0)=sin'(0), and f''(0)=sin''(0), and the third derivative….

@alcinnz This normally takes between 10 min and an hour of staring at the page, thinking (perhaps with doodling, or fiddly algebra).

@alcinnz I'm not sure where @horner comes from, but it looks like it's probably Horner's root-finding method, rather than Horner's evaluation method.

(Without knowing for certain what the definitions mean, I'm not certain how it works – but it doesn't seem incomprehensible.)

@alcinnz @ranfdev Wonder whether, in the absence of state-sponsored material, we could curate our own library of what the volunteers have made?

Or, better still, if anyone knows of anyone who's already done this?

@ranfdev We do, in places. But:

• It's always teaching to exams; unlike 3b1b, which follows interesting topics.
• The funding goes away before they get through even their original curriculum.

@alcinnz Neither. Elements defined in CSS are :defined. (Exception: userstyles shouldn't count towards this, imo – but I haven't thought very hard about it.)

@violet_cerue The point of copyright wasn't originally to own ideas and information. It was:

• to permit and encourage the sharing and archival of works;
• to allow people to be creatives and artists professionally, without starving.

Reforming copyright is necessary. Abolishing copyright cannot be done without ensuring a solution to these problems. (Modern copyright doesn't adequately solve these problems.)

@violet_cerue Yes, that's true: but they were originally designed to promote the publication of inventions (patents) and art (copyright) by rewarding the registrant of the copyright/patent with temporary monopoly rights, iirc. – this was to compensate for the fact that a secret is *inherently* monopolised already.

And private property "rights" are older than the industrial revolution; that goes back to feudal times, surely? The concept wasn't invented for factories.

@violet_cerue Huh, the enclosure movement was a few hundred years later than I thought it was. (So how did feudalism work, then? I mustn't understand that properly…)

Our current resource allocation system is based on property. If you're not treating art as property, then creating art does not give you a share of the resources, and (unless you're selling your art-creation labour, e.g. doing commissions) you can't afford to live.

You have to dismantle the whole machine, not just part of it.

@lightweight @joncounts @abartlet Would it help to call it libre?