Looking for good books, web sites, papers, and training opportunites regarding various types of open source licensing:

Target Audience, about 50 Programmers and Business Owners in a self-directed shop (managerial tasks are spread out throughout the shop since there are no "managers")

Willing to purchase materials, travel for training, bring trainer on site, etc. etc. At this point I wouldn't rule out the possibilty of hiring a smalltalk/Java programmer with an eXtremeProgramming background and a solid knowledge of Open Source licensing.

http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/08/16/1621244 if you want the basic thread behind this.

It's obvious Mike has failed to actually understand one of the core concepts of the bandwagon he's hopped on, which is the belief that a license is something that should be chosen, not forced on people.

It's also obvious that a huge portion of the community is more than willing to slam his ass for that lack of a clue.

But it makes for an interesting business model. It seems probably enough that threads like that generate immediate hits, which, through advertising, generates revenue. However, it also seems to me that threads like that discourage new users who came looking for something better and discourage old users who see too much of that.

So what's the tradeoff? Immediate hits vs. long term vistors.

Unfortunately, the immediate hits are easy to see. The lost visitors are much harder to measure. Which leads me to think the people in marketing will keep people like Mike.

It's also a shame. It would have been nice if the discussion was related around the news, instead of around Mike's commentary. Unfortunately, the editoral simply destroyed any hope of a decent discussion about the article.

So much for slashdot...

Watching someone erupt with ire because they don't know what thread they're in.

Sometimes I'm wishing there was a moderation for "Ignorant"

Nope. I didn't mod either of them. But I'm thinking a "WTF" +0 mod would be great to add to the system. That way I can just label the posts I see that are REALLY messed up and anyone who wants to see such fine examples of humanity can give them a +5 in their options.

Note: I wish I could see all the mods on an item when reading, since sometimes I set my levels for an extra +1 for informative or to ignore humor. I'd like to know what the "current default rating" for a post is.

Karma: Excellent (mostly affected by moderation done to your comments)

No longer do I watch my Karma dive like a rock. It's now just a number in a database, and all I get to see is some rough interpretation of that number.

Cool. It turns out that Ignorance really is Bliss.

Overrated,Troll,Insightful

Now granted, the post was probably rather pointless, but the moderator response alone is interesting. Overrated? Sure. Troll? Sure. But how do you end up with an Overrated Trolling, but Insightful post?

I'd like to figure out how to change my configuration to reflect that sort of thing. Maybe something along the line of an extra +1 for every type of moderation involved on a post. After all, I'd rather read an Insightful Interesting post than an Interesting*2 post.

I answered a question someone posted to one of my journal entries and was moderated down for it!

The comment in question
The journal entry in question

This has got to be the silliest thing to ever happen to me on Slashdot. Beyond anything else it has converted me over to the belief that moderation and Karma is actually the joke everyone has been telling me it is.

BTW, How the heck are all of you people finding and reading this journal? I, for one, would love to know since I figured the chance of someone following one of the links here to be about one in a million.

Edit: Now someone moderated the comment back up! hahahaha
And down again! The current score?
Moderation Totals: Offtopic=2, Underrated=1, Total=3.

Overrated

What the fuck? I'm just trying to post a decent question. Just because two moderators can't agree with each other over what it should be rated, why the hell should it affect my Karma?

I don't know. I probably shouldn't care. But why contribute when I can accomplish the same effect (dropping my Karma like a rock) by simply posting links to goat sex sites.

Ok. So I'm a Karma whore but even I have my limits.

I never asked to be moderated up on UserFriendly and I never would have expected it to work this well.

I really have to wonder how much a score 5 means when people abuse the system in this way. Maybe the system really is broken...

The post in question

+1 interesting (3)
+1 interesting (4)
+1 interesting (5)
-1 Overrated (4)
+1 interesting (5)

And still my Karma dies. Why am I losing Karma for a posting still rated 5? I'll be danged if I know. Now I don't mind losing Karma for trolling or any other offense, but I'm really tired of losing Karma because one moderator didn't agree with another moderator's action. Don't punish me, punish the moderator. Drop their Karma down because it's obvious to me that the problem isn't my post, it's one moderator not agreeing with another.

My sig says: "Overrated" is Killing my Karma. It's not kidding. Either drop everyone's Karma down to 50 or stop punishing me for other moderator's actions. But please quit killing me slowly.

http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/05/31/1651254 is cementing my views on Slashdot and greed. The number of pro-piracy posts (and the editorial slant of the original article) is clearly "it's ok to pirate".

And yet, if the source code in an open source application was being used in a closed source application well outside the open source license, what would be the response?

You can't have your cake and eat it too. If you expect people and companies to respect your license and your creation, then you have to respect theirs. That's simple enough.

What does this mean in the long run? Really, all it means is that you use that which you claim to love. You use freeware, open source, software. You use Linux, Mozilla, Gimp, etc. And you let the rest of the world deal with Adobe and Microsoft because YOU DON'T NEED THEM.

There's no reason to support piracy on slashdot unless you actually belive closed source software is actually better then open source freeware.

Sadly enough, that seems to be the belief now.

Do you rember when

• Open Source was about adding new options, not taking away old options?
• Free Software didn't means "as in beer"?
• The liscenses we choose were tools, not clubs?
• We respected the rights of others to use different liscenses for their software?
• Comments in Slashdot actually used to link to resources?
• FUD wasn't moderated up as informative? Even FUD that supported us?
• We remembered why open source was supposed to be more secure?

I'm beginning to suspect those days are over now. No. That's a lie. I'm convinced those days are over now. Even surfing at 4 and above, I see so much FUD, and so many people for whom free software has become a religion for the greedy that I've grown to have the same opinion or worse about the slashdot user base than Rob has been accused of.

Once upon a time I supported open source as an alternative. It was a wonderful way for programmers to share their creations and to encourage people to build off of their creations provided they were willing to also share. It allowed people to look at the code, learn, find places it could be improved and, amazingly enough, improve it.

That was a long time ago. Now, the very tool that has given us that freedom is a club used to take freedoms from others.

I won't develop open source anymore. I can't afford to. It's no longer a way for me to release code under my control, because the "movement" seems to not trust anyone unless I release the code to be under their control. And yes, there is a difference. Because now I have to make sure I have all my i's dotted and my t's crossed before I even think about making any of it public, lest I fail to be perfect and suffer the wrath of the critics.

What was once about freedom is now about greed. There are people in this community that want the source because it means free (as in beer). They rally against anyone who chooses any liscense other than the ones they approve of, and they are more than willing to use tactics we once swore we wouldn't sink to. Their wrath isn't limited to specific targets anymore, anyone within or without the community needs to meet their standards or they will rant and rave and...

And..

And that's the hook dear people. They can't take their money elsewhere, simply because they don't pay. And because of that, the model is now skewed. The people who do pay. The people willing to give me money for my creation. The people who will be the reason I can feed my children. Well, they don't care about open source. They don't care about security or privacy. They don't want the rights or even the ability to distribute my creation how they choose.

But the people who cared? The ones that belived in open source and sharing? They're surrounded by people who can't and won't pay. Not only for software but for music and entertainment. They're the people who could care less about copyright simply because copyright is a tool that prevents they from getting what they want for free.

I can't come here and say "Sony is wrong because they're taking away rights I used to have", when I'm saying it to a crowd of people who exchange music files amoung themselves on a regular basis. It's like complaining about sales taxes to a group of black market merchants.

When Macromedia is no longer bashed for chosing a unapproved open model. When people admit that maybe the people who own the copyright, own the distribution rights and should be able to choose their own marketing method. When Slashdot comments stop getting moderated up for being FUD. Maybe then we have a chance in heck of not looking like a hoaky religion.

Until then, I think I'll be out there with the agnostics where it's safe.

"They called it paradise, I don't know why. Call some place paradise, kiss it goodbye." - The Eagles.

I'll find the time to moderate. To read at the lower levels. To promote the good...

Oh Lord. What has become of Slashdot?

A while back I set my threshold at 4. I see now what a wise choice this was. The things that were at 3 already cause me to shudder. The things at 2... I had seen better posts at -1. The things at 1 still give me nightmares.

I think there is no longer a reason to moderate a post down to level 2 or lower. Even the old "first post" threads were better than some of these.

"News for Nerds?" These people aren't nerds. There were people who didn't know how to change the security settings on their browser. These were people who didn't know the difference between DHTML and Flash, and thought that Flash was to blame for it's content. (Does that make Linux to blame for Geocities?)

What was missing? Factual references, links to relevent pages, humor that was crafted instead of slammed out there quickly before the 100th post clogged the arteries of the article. How hard is it to actually take the time and write something worth reading?

You would think that with the number of people who were constantly upset at the author's ability to craft a blurb, there would be some that lit up the world with intelligent witty reasoning....

You would be wrong.

Just wading through the number of people with an axe to grind against slashdot amazed me. Why do these people keep coming here if they hate it so? They would rant against the author, completely oblivious to the fact that their preference pages includes a checkbox to exclude stories by author or by anything else.

To whomever you were who posted late and had a rating of 1. I'm sorry, but the horror I endured before I reached your post took it's tool on my sanity. I tried to find the best 5 underrated posts I could and sift them through the verbal debris that is now Slashdot level 3 and below.

I once wondered why so many lame jokes were rated 5: funny. I now know. Sometimes as a moderator, a decent joke at level 4 must look like gold.

I love Slashdot, and the concept of open source, but I'm not sure I love the people it attracts. There's way to many people out there who care more about their rights than their responsibilities. There's way to many people out there who see Open Source as a way to get everything they want for free (as in beer). They see peer to peer as a method to not pay for what they want, not as a way to distribute their own creations. They see Open Source as a way to fufill their greed, not their generosity. And they see Slashdot as a way to enforce their opinions, not share their knowledge.

"They called it paradise, I don't know why.
Call someplace paradise, kiss it goodbye."
- The Eagles.