>>>>> "tl" == =?utf-8?B?VHJpc2ggTHluY2g=?= <utf-8> writes: >>>>> "n" == nikolai <nikolai@xxx> writes: >>>>> "ys" == Yusuke Shinyama <yusuke@xxx> writes: tl> Now the J2ME thing - I have no issues with RIM and writing my tl> own J2ME apps and running them there. [...] tl> "LJ2ME", a livejournal client. And even midpssh. Are these apps ``blessed'' by RIM in any way? What I mean is, can I * download the source to LJ2ME, * change it, * and then distribute it to my RIM-using friends in the same easy-to-install format as the unmodified LJ2ME that I first downloaded? if so, that fixes my ``won't touch it''-level objection from last time I dealt with this world. The only other thing I'd add, is that while I had Nextel, I talked about this problem with other J2ME-excited friends, and they always incorrectly told me ``no, you can do that, you can do whatever you want.'' Then when I started talking about cables, codes, and developer kits, they glazed over and showed me how to download blessed apps from Nextel and said ``see?'' But since you've actually built some apps, you probably know where they didn't. How do you distribute the ones you've built---is it a second-class method to the way mainstream apps are distributed? Can they be widely-distributed to everyone without RIM's consent/involvement? as far as lesser objections, I wonder if you have experience with: * do they limit your access to peripherals to prevent bits from escaping the phone, like probably intending to prevent you from writing a Java version of Slirp? You can't use bluetooth or irda or a serial port or anything else that could connect you to a laptop? They used to do this. It was annoying because you couldn't write your own Java apps that connect to GPS pods. * do they let you use the GPS built into the phone, or are they still trying to charge a few cents ``per location fix''? * do you have to use their IDE to upload the apps over some special cable, or use it to install some proprietary RIM ``header'' onto the app file, or can you build them with any working J2ME DK you like on your OS of choice and download them over-the-air? * what is the Internet connection like? Nextel's connection---the super expensive unlimited use Golden Packet Spray plan you were explicitly _allowed_ to use with laptops, not even anything where I was ``cheating'' or working around some stumbling block---had this NAT that seemed to quietly kill connections if it detected packet loss. so IM was useless unless you were standing still. I started with a cheaper metered plan, there was no NAT, and I didn't have this problem. but the packet meter in the phone never matched my bill, and I calculated it would cost $1000 to download firefox over the air, so I switched. This difference between the plans was never disclosed or discussed, and it took hours on hold and a couple weeks of no internet because of their mistakes to switch between ``plans.'' It was endlessly frustrating. For you, Jabber actually works, and works as well as the bundled IM tools they give you? or are they giving you some brokeass Internet, or Internet that can only work well by talking to a Sidekick-style proxy server which has to be on their LAN? I mean, if they've improved upon the AIM protocol to make some kind of RIMAIM, then installed a RIMAIM<->AIM bridge on their network, that seems fair _as long as you can install a RIMJABBER<->Jabber bridge on the regular Internet._ but, like, in my Nextel example, they would probably put their bridge in front of the goofy NAT, while your bridge would have to go behind it and thus maybe could never work as well. n> Even started using sms :) c> oh, yeah great, SMS. n> Oh, dude, that was a joke ... yeah I use it now too, to talk to our housemate Lauren about buying vegetables. I type the smiley faces and leave out apostrophes and everything. It's like the story of how native american culture was stolen. They allow us small reservations, but lure us away with these attractive traveling people who are full of stories. The vastness of this wide brown land is fascinating. n> iphone because it has an accelerometer I heard someone wrote a program to make it sound like it has marbles inside when you shake it, and they make the number of marbles correspond to the number of voicemails. gorsh dowrnit whautll-they think orv next. so there. now someone scream at me for being a hypocrite because I also talk sometimes like a fourteen year old girl, and a retired model train hobbyist, and use unfree instant messaging tools, and yet simultaneously lament these facts. OMG! The contradiction! ys> don't wanna pour more oil onto the flame, but I'm curious ys> about what do you mean by "BSDish" in this context, maybe the type of openness in the history of BSD: the trading of tapes among universities, the ability to conveniently fork whole projects and gather followers around CVS repositories and thus build tight communities/projects capable of both functioning and preserving a culture. And the way small BSD tools are often ported into things that aren't even Unixy. The restrictions on the Nextel J2ME phone I had seven years ago, on the iPhone, and the Sidekick squash these possibilities. not sure about RIM yet---we kinda brought in this new phone half way through the argument. BSD was also a kit of simple tools adapted to work well for collaborating with most of the Internet. This means they must be old tools that change slowly to avoid excluding people, and run on simple, well-documented protocols. They must also be politically transparent, or at least so simple as to be inoffensive to screaming mailing list people---the RFC process, and the loose connection between ISC and BSD (similar, compatible licenses. sometimes sharing colocation space.) Most of this new IM, socialnetworking, fancyphone stuff is about herding people from one fad to the next, which means things should change quickly but be very enticing, and that members of the old fad need to be excluded or else there's no reason to declare your new allegiance. The protocol is your own damn business, no one else's. And if someone's offended it must be because of the fad's ``success,'' not because he has to be centrally logged and pay twenty cents to ask what color of squash is preferred tonight, and that no one ever really chose this situation, just sort of got railroaded into it. ys> Linux has this kind of openness too. i mentioned BSD-openness to point out the discussion was OT, but Linux openness would probably work just as well. I would have to substitute some other story about the history of Linux and squashed possibility. but since you bring it up... Linux IMHO did a better job of maintaining a living commitment to openness rather than just whining about the old days of passing tapes around. And they _also_ do a better job of soliciting corporate contribution---Linux is all over the place, in terms of devices where it runs and paid full-time developers. but the quality is just so low. They failed to preserve the culture and style that the BSD old-timers kept alive on BSD lists and meetings and were overrun by these ``whatever works'' or ``right tool for the job'' pragmatists, Windows refugees, weirdly entitled students. And these big projects are so delicate. Look at how Gnome completely, I don't know, devoured itself, fell over, imploded? and how close Netscape/Mozilla/Firefox teeters toward doing the same thing? This failure is more of religion than politics, which means I think it's more important and more dearly-held by those who follow it. One of the big points that makes Eben Moglen care about software freedom, according to his speeches, is education: we need free as in free-beer development environments and manuals for teaching children in poorer countries, and free as in freedom code for them to look at because the best way to become a good programmer is to read lots and lots of other people's good code. but I would hate to think of a student looking at Linux code! It's awful! While BSD has always been used for this, and has always been great for it. so BSD claimed this different kind of license would make it easier to get paid jobs for working on BSD than on GPL'ed code. They also said they'd get corporate funding for development of the core source tree. These were their virtues over Linux or GPL zealots. Strangely, Linux has done MUCH better at both of these as far as I can see, and I'm not eager to concede such a thing because I really hate dealing with Linux. and Linux guys said we need source code for everything to teach the next generation of developers, that moving toward this more free world of greater possibility for every geek everywhere was their primary mission. And personally, I find that argument compelling over the easier-to-get-paid-jobs, corporate-funding argument. But their source code is horrible for teaching! And keeps growing more horrible through successive additions by poorly- or incompletely-educated badly-supervised developers teaching each other turning into some Lord of the Flies mess. for me it's hilarious to see how the debate starts to pan out when confronted with reality. It's like everyone's being mocked. tl> Honestly - yes I am a Libertarian and Objectivist, but rants tl> liike yours (Miles) come out to people who aren't staunch tl> capitalists like I am as if you're a crazy socialist tl> zealot. In this case, you're not even objecting to my talking about something technical that hazily involves some of your political ideas---you're objecting to my particular political ideas themselves. We could continue this discussion on the libertarian list or the objectivist list, or the staunch capitalist list, if I were subscribed to those. Or we could continue on nettime-bold, if you were subscribed to that. However, (surprise!) we don't seem to subscribe to the same political lists. So what if my ideas do come out to you that way? I certainly don't care to tell you how you're coming across to me. :) This isn't the place for you to ``correct'' my politics (or me yours!). I do have some political opinions, but don't think I should have to put up with being baited to talk about them where it's OT by someone calling me a child repeatedly. Please, knock it off! I offer once again that, for nycbug-l, our politics ought to be framed into some topical technical issue. At least then we can argue about it in a way that's not obnoxious for everyone else. -- READ CAREFULLY. By reading this fortune, you agree, on behalf of your employer, to release me from all obligations and waivers arising from any and all NON-NEGOTIATED agreements, licenses, terms-of-service, shrinkwrap, clickwrap, browsewrap, confidentiality, non-disclosure, non-compete and acceptable use policies ("BOGUS AGREEMENTS") that I have entered into with your employer, its partners, licensors, agents and assigns, in perpetuity, without prejudice to my ongoing rights and privileges. You further represent that you have the authority to release me from any BOGUS AGREEMENTS on behalf of your employer.
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