Eh, he tweeted some shit about pronouns that got the transgender community in a tizzy. I avoid social media like the plague.
I don't think we'll see eye to eye on this, but the focus on electric cars to mitigate climate change doesn't help us move toward more acceptance of public transportation or better city design, both of which would be arguably more effective at reducing carbon emissions.
We absolutely see eye to eye on this. I am a moderate liberal. I don't have to be persuaded that man made climate change is real. All the best evidence we have supports this. Right now, every time I flick a light switch, start my car or eat a burger, I think about my own contribution to the problem. Elon Musk is the one doing something about it and I won't even get up to turn the channel on my TV because the battery powered remote control is so convenient. My point is that while electric cars may not be the best mitigation tactic we can conceive of, it's way more than I would've thought one man could contribute. Not only is he eliminating fossil fuel internal combustion engines off the roads, he's making it desirable to do so... even for climate change skeptics! Tesla's are a bit out of my price range at the moment but I hope to have one in the near future... I am in the process of getting Tesla solar panels on my home. I'm really not some Elon fanboy. I really don't feel compelled to defend him or evangelize the man more than I do what he's working for. I won't continue to do so here. I just recognize that when I could be doing more, Elon Musk actually is and is helping others to do so.
I'm basing my opinion on whether he pays his fair share of taxes. Beyond that, dude can do what the fuck he likes with his cash. Glad you approve of what he does. I find it fairly laudable too. On a more personal level, he does come off entitled and a bit of a twat. But that's not exclusive to those with cash. The entitlement might be behind his tax dodging though.
It’s not his fault that billionaires get so many tax breaks. What matters more to me is that he’s using his vast resources and tax breaks to help the world. Like I said, he’s using the system to help make ACTION on climate change desirable…. And to seed the universe with humanity. If we want broad action on climate change, you’re going to need corporate/industrial buy-in as well. Because it’s obvious to me that the politicians won’t do it. Given that, I’d almost rather the money be in his hands.
Bill Gates once said that after you reach $100 million, money is basically meaningless. Because once you reach that point, if you want to do something, but don't have the cash, there are plenty of people who will loan/give you the money. Got an idea for a business that'll take $1 billion to get off the ground? No problem, banks will happily loan you the money, or any number of people will invest in the project. Musk (and other billionaires) might not have a significant portion of their wealth in cash but they might as well have, since if they need large amounts of cash in a hurry, they can get it, easily enough. Nah, he just has a better PR department than most of them. Everyone forgets that his parents owned an emerald mine in South Africa, and once Apartheid ended, they fucked off to the US with all their money. The accounts of what it was like to work at the Tesla plant before COVID hit are pretty horrific. Women were sexually harassed so badly that there were parts of the plant that they were afraid to enter (Musk only attempted to do something about it once word got out that he'd been notified for months about it and hadn't done anything). There's also supposed to be a high rate of injuries in the plants. Higher than other auto plants, apparently. Don't tell him that, he expects it to happen before 2040. Eh. He was one of the people who founded Tesla, and then bought, or forced out, the other founders. Electric cars were inevitable, as Toyota had been selling the Prius Hybrids for years before this while they worked on improving battery technology. Musk made electrics sexy by using a Lotus body for his first models. He's also using Tesla to bootstrap SpaceX. Going forward, if you want to get remote software updates for your Tesla or remote diagnostics, you have to subscribe to SpaceX's internet service. Kind of a dick move, if you ask me, but I get where he's coming from. As for his open-sourcing of the patents, that comes with a number of caveats. Contrast that with the open-source licensing for the Linux operating system, which says you can do anything you want with it, you just can't charge for it. AFAIK, none of the other automakers have taken advantage of the stuff that Tesla's made open-source, which is stupid of them, even if I'm not a fan of how Musk made the stuff open-source. I'll skip the technicalities of it, but suffice it to say that if an open-source license doesn't allow the user of the product to modify it how they wish, it's not really open-source. Yeah, I don't know why someone who said that the US should "coup who we want" and that a second stimulus package would be bad for America, would be met with disdain. Crazy, right?
That's not how the Linux open source license (properly called the General Public License) works at all. You can most certainly charge money (any price you care to charge, as a matter of fact) for your products that you made from the Linux kernel under the GPL.
Not if you’re talking about the OS itself. None of the Linux distros can be sold. If you distribute it via disc, or some other physical media, you can charge for that. You can charge for support or documentation, but the actual OS has to be free.
That's kind of equivocating, and kind of outright false. First of all, the Linux kernel is what's primarily licensed under GPL Version 2. But the kernel isn't a whole OS. It's the core only. Various companies make OS's based on the Linux kernel, and as per the Linux kernel's license, any product made from the Linux kernel must be released under the same license (or newer revisions of it). If Acme Software Company gets ahold of the Linux kernel and makes their own version of Linux called Acme Linux, or Acmix or whatever they want to call it, whether they use the kernel outright or modify it themselves, they can do ANYTHING THEY WANT WITH it. They call sell it, give it away for free, charge money for a download, charge money for a disk, etc. There is no requirement to just up and give it away for free. What they must do: 1. Provide or make available the source code to anyone who acquires the product. What they may not do: 1. Prevent people from modifying the product to make their own product. 2. Prevent people from freely distributing the product once they've acquired a copy. https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#DoesUsingTheGPLForAProgramMakeItGNUSoftware
I’ve been futzing around with Linux for 20+ years and have never heard of a distro one had to pay for. Documentation, tech support, physical media, and specific programs? Yes. But even the high security, fully encrypted, and supposedly impervious to hackers distro is free.
There are several Linux distros that cost money. Whether you've been "futzing around with Linux for 20+ years" or not. Either way, that has nothing to do with whether your initial claim was right or wrong. You said: "the open-source licensing for the Linux operating system, which says you can do anything you want with it, you just can't charge for it.". This was demonstrably wrong.
Heck, Linspire charges money for a single user "self support" license. 40 bucks even (last I checked, for Linspire 9)!
Actually I just checked, the "Download Only Version" of Linspire 10, with no support, single user license, costs $29.99.
I saw a couple of skits and this motherfucker couldn't even memorize his lines, he was reading them offscreen He was noticeably awkward and has no natural ability for this type of thing My verdict:
Regardless, it doesn’t change the point I was making, in that you can get under the hood and tweak the shit all you want, because you own it. You can’t do that with Tesla’s software. Because the licensing doesn’t allow it.
Hey, I was just correcting the one false point I saw . I don't have any knowledge of the Tesla software license. As far as I know you're right about that.
Actually a very quick read-up on the issue of Tesla's patents seems to indicate that you're not exactly right about that either.
Your "wrong font" comment is noted. Please, elaborate. Because my understanding is that if an automaker decides to use the stuff, they can modify it as needs be, but the "end-user" (ie the person who buys the car) is SOL. See, I don't give two-shits about what XYZ car maker can do with the stuff, and I don't care if tweaking the code voids warranties. What I care about, and everything that I've read from various tech blogs, indicates is that if an end-user does anything with the code, they're in violation of the TOS. Never mind that this enables them to do things that Tesla never thought of. Or that massive hunks of innovation in the automotive industry come from average folks modifying their cars, the folks at car companies seeing this at a car cruise, and then adopting it for future models. Not that Tesla is somehow unique in this, Toyota got all kinds of butthurt (to the point of filing lawsuits) against folks who modded their Prius to be more efficient, and then made those mods standard equipment on later models. If you want an idea of how far such bullshit ideas can go, I suggest you read Unauthorized Bread.
It's been that way for decades. It's just more noticeable now because, overall, the cast isn't as talented as it used to be.
I've never heard of anyone paying for Red Hat. For tech support from them and documentation, absolutely. But the actual OS? No. (Might be some fudging between Red Hat and Fedora, but I don't know, since there's been a whole lot of mergers between various distro companies. Mandrake became Mandriva, and then they got bought by Red Hat, I think. Point being that you could download the stuff and tweak the shit out of it to your heart's content without having lawyers shove their heads up your ass. Try doing that with the OS that runs a Tesla.)
That appears to refer to the server version, not the desktop. Dunno about servers, don't have one, don't plan on having one, and none of that indicates if it's a new thing or something that's been around since Red Hat was founded. Also, fix your quote tags, Dayton. I'm not poking around to figure all of that out since you can't be arsed to leave the quote tags where they should be.
