The Free Content License They Used 1800 Years Ago

In my Pahlavi (also called Middle Persian) classes we've started reading a new text called "The Book of Wars (or Works) of Ardeshir-e Bābakān" which belongs to some 1800 years ago. Here's my rough translation of its first paragraph:

In the name, power, and help of the Creator Ohrmazd, the Glorious, the Great, wishing health and long life for all good-doers especially those who have this (text) (re)written.

Imagine if we had something like that last phrase in the GNU FDL (or other licenses)!

A note about the text for the curious:

Although the book is very interesting from a historical or linguistic perspective, it's not the most honest kind of history. To the contrary, it is part of a grand struggle by the Sassanid Empire, not only to legitimize their government, but also to remove their predecessors the Ashkanians (the Parthians) from the face of history. Interestingly, the government they were trying to remove from history is, to this very date, the longest ruling government in the history of Iran, having ruled more than 460 years. You will be surprised to know that they succeeded in this quest to a very large extent. The Ashkanian Empire is hardly ever mentioned in later texts. This fact, along with the fact that Sassanids destroyed almost everything their predecessors had built, makes it very difficult for us to get to know about what was probably the coolest government we've had in our history: a federal (and to a large extent democrat) empire.

Update: I did a little bit more research and found out that my assumption that the book is written 1800 years ago may not be correct. Apparently, for all that we know, it is written some times during the reign of Sassanids, which make it any time between 1800 and 1400 years ago. Still I guess it is old enough!

Everyone's Excited

Ubuntu website is almost down! I guess there are thousands (or millions) of people around the world who are refreshing the main page (and the download pages) every few seconds. Everyone's expecting the release of Ubuntu 7.04 (codenamed "Feisty Fawn"). The release is due today. Everyone's excited! I can't help not to refresh. I think I should go and read something, just to be away from my computer.

Is This a Joke?

The picture shows http://cesa.iust.ac.ir when viewed from Firefox (and other non-IE browsers). The text reads "For better viewing and more security, please view this website using Internet Explorer."

We have to use this website to download the practices for some of the university courses.

I get angry when I see some people who hardly know anything about web design (this is apparent from the first time you visit the website) claim such things about "security." Of course, the implementor of the website is not concerned about our security (if he was, surely he would not recommend using IE). He only wants to use Internet Explorer's non-standard features instead of the world wide accepted standards and using a free software equivalent (IF the website really needs those features, which I doubt about it).

Non-free software bothers, non-free "standards" ruin.

Copy Protection

A brilliant definition for "copy protection," from the Jargon File.

copy protection: n.

A class of methods for preventing incompetent pirates from stealing software and legitimate customers from using it. Considered silly.

Why We Need Arc

A lot of Lisp enthusiasts, including me, have been eagerly expecting the arrival of Arc ever since Paul Graham announced working on it. I think not only having Arc is exciting, the Lisp community really *needs* Arc.

Back in the old good days Common Lisp had one of the largest standard libraries ever. This has changed dramatically in recent years and now CL's standard library can correctly be called "tiny". This becomes a real problem along with the fact that CL does not have a de facto standard, only an official one which is not sufficient, nor does it have a de facto implementation and although the lack of a single prominent implementation can be beneficial (Darwin's evolution theory) along with the fact that CL's standard library is really tiny in comparison to many new languages today (Python, for example) and there is no way for adding new packages to the standard library, a fundamental problem arises, and this problem for the Lisp community. Many good libraries have been written for Common Lisp, but they are not anyhow part of the standard and neither they have become a de facto standard. I believe, Arc can change that. Why? Because there is one man behind it, just like Python. In case of Python, the language and the libraries are largely being developed and enhanced by the community, but the presence of Guido assures that everything runs smoothly and when there cannot be a consensus (like for the new "if" expression in Python 2.5, or the "print >>" statement) there is one man who decides what to do. This sometimes may sound undemocratic, but at least it will help things run.The position of Paul Graham in today's Lisp community is probably even stronger than Guido in Python community. Many new Lispers will tell you that they turned to Lisp only because of reading Graham's essays and in fact he has become kind of mentor to them.

Whenever we have Arc, we will have a real evolving de facto standard: new libraries can be added to the standard library and language enhancement proposals can be made. We can enjoy an evolving language, as much as Python, Perl and Ruby programmer can.

Some people have been criticizing Paul Graham for announcing a vaporware and that Arc is only a delusion. I disagree with this belief. Why there isn't a running implementation of Arc after so much time, and despite the fact that Paul Graham is always encouraging software startups to release a working edition as early as possible? Shouldn't he follow his own advice? I don't think so. When he encourages startups to release early, he is teaching them how to start a company and finally make money out of it (and releasing early, as he argues, is essential for today's startups). But he himself is not going to start an Arc company; Arc is his hobby, and besides that, releasing even a very early alpha or beta, will start his career of leadership in a community and it will certainly take a lot of time from him; a time he may not be able to spare now. Also, releasing a working edition will probably take his hobby from him. Paul Graham, as far as I can understand from his website, is a language enthusiast and he seems to really enjoy constantly changing the language to see only what happens. He won't be able to do that as much after release. This reminds of J.R.R. Tolkien. Tolkien was a language enthusiast (of course, human languages I mean) and he loved to change the languages he invented, the process which started from early Qneya and resulted the modern Quenya beside others (and not to mention other languages he invented). After release of Lord of the Rings he was not able to play with his favorite hobby as he liked anymore. So I don't think it is correct to blame Paul on not releasing Arc. We're asking him to leave his hobby, and then spare a lot of his time for the coming community. Although he himself has decided to do that, it would be very ungrateful of us demand anything else. We should only hope!

Would You Replace the Washing Machine?

"If your car or washing machine is still running well, do you replace it? Would you replace your car if a new one required you to learn a new way to turn it off?"

I came up with this question today in an article discussing if upgrading to Windows Vista is really essential for most users or not, considering that they are doing their everyday tasks before that normally, and also that according to a study by Softchoice, 94 percent of PCs do not meet the system requirements for Vista Premium. You may know that I'm not using Windows anymore, but the question and the article made me think seriously, and I finally concluded that, "yes, I would!"

Now you're probably wondering why I would do that. It's simple. Consider the case of the washing machine. What if you don't upgrade the washing machine and keep receiving emails containing attached dishes that can only be washed with the washing machine that can be turned off some new way (probably the new way consists of a nine item menu and even an "Are you sure?" dialog after that)? And in the case of the car, probably most new parts have a "new-turn-off-way certified" or a "modern-turn-off tuned" seal on them? Wouldn't the average user just upgrade to the new washing machine (or car)? Seems reasonable, ...or probably the whole thing is seriously wrong.

Don't bother with Vista, and also put an end to Word attachments.

The Wise Move

It's more than a month I haven't booted into Windows. Today, I had to go to Windows to check something work in Windows, because I want to give it to a university instructor and it has to work correctly in Windows. Guess what happened? Just when Windows XP started up, after a long time of hard disk activity, it proposed me to restart the computer because it had detected a new hardware! And I assure you there is no new hardware. Of course, I clicked 'No'.

I had a short work of a few minutes, and it was enough to show me how slow Windows is. It was like a headache. I'm wondering how I used to do my everyday work in Windows. I'm now more confident about my move, and I'm so happy it finished!

Freedom Is Good

No, this is not a political post. It has more with the hacker spirit than with them (Don't misunderstand the real hacker for the stereotypical Hollywood types you see in movies or read about in newspapers; They're crackers. See Eric Raymond's famous How to Become a Hacker for more information on "Freedom Is Good" and the hacker attitude itself). I've just left the company I was working for in the last two months and I'm enjoying my freedom.

Now I understand the stress of working for someone else: someone stupid chooses a stupid project for you to work on, and you should maintain a long long list of stupid standards and then present your program for even a more stupid person (the exact "pointy-haired boss" type Paul Graham describes; See Revenge of the Nerds for more info). All of these happens in a stupid environment where they call it a company. And I was the smartest of the programmers (they said) and was assigned those projects that needed a smarter guy!

Now I'm again on my own. I choose my own project (how about an online game, or something fun like that), I can choose my own programming language (My favorites are Lisp, and Python after it), I maintain my own coding standards (isn't it just stupid to call the loop index "intCounter"?) and the working place is "home, sweet home", with the favorite Ubuntu box always at hand.

One can understand heaven only after experiencing the hell!

Unix Quote: The Insight

"Part of the charm of Unix is, all of a sudden, having a great insight and saying to yourself, "So THAT's why they did it that way.""

— The Unix Companion (page 356)

Source: Harley Hahn's Unix Quotes

No Need for Thinking!

"It is really easy. You don't even have to think. We will take care of that for you." This can be a good motto for the government of Iran, and especially for president Ahmadinejad's government. A few minutes ago, an SMS from my brother informed me that English Wikipedia and IMDb have been added to the filtering list of the Telecom company (the government organization which all telecommunications service providers of the country have to get their infrastructure services from). Uploading the "Requested Page Is Forbidden" image above, I found out that photos1.blogger.com is also filtered out (I cannot see the image myself now, I hope it fits well!).

English Wikipedia is my first place for searching information about almost any topic, as it is for many many people, so this is a shock (and I'm not going to stop using it, even if it is filtered!). This is the first time a major English language site is filtered. Previously, most filtered information-providing web sites where Persian, for example while BBC English is open, BBC Persian is filtered. I think this may be a new wave of Internet filtering which can include many other major sites (even Google and Blogger?) in the future. Step by step they are doing their moves. First it came the limiting of broadband services, now new major web sites are filtered? Who can guess what their next move is going to be?

The Way of Unix

I'm enjoying my life! Switching to Linux was an excellent idea. I'm just regretting why I didn't do this earlier (I had been thinking about this for more than a year!). In many books I had read how things in Unix are, and it was all like a mystery. Now I am really experiencing the way of Unix in Linux. How is it different, you ask? My answer: Although there are a *lot* of differences, the most important thing, in my opinion, is you must learn before you can do anything. Learning is essential. For example, in my first days in Linux I made a complete mess with my package manager and a large number of packages. Many programs simply stopped working. It took me a lot of time to figure out what's wrong and a few days to fix everything. But now I know much more than before. What would I do in Windows to fix such thing? A simple reinstall! Yes, simple it is, but does it teach you not to make the same mistake again? Apparently not. And that's why many people keep reinstalling Windows every few weeks (or even more, sometimes much more).

Now that I'm talking about Linux making people learn, I remember part of Eric Raymond's How to Become a Hacker in which he says about Unix-like systems: "...you'll have fun, and you'll soak up more knowledge than you realize you're learning until you look back on it as a master hacker." Now I don't mean that I've become a master hacker, but I'm beginning to realize.

Another thing I'm really enjoying in Linux is that automating tasks is a whole lot easier. There are a lot of powerful scripting languages and the whole system is much more scriptable. I learned that in Linux the solution of many problems I might have to install a program for in Windows, is a small script. A script is a program, and what else is more enjoyable for a programmer than writing programs for everyday tasks?

Unix, and today's Unix-like systems like Linux, are a dream world for a programmer. If you enjoy programming and you're still stuck to Windows, you're probably missing the most enjoyable environment a programmer can ever have.

New Experiences

I've been having new exciting experiences during the last few days. I finally moved to (GNU/)Linux and my transition process was amazingly painless. As a programmer, I find the new environment more convenient --everything is simply more natural. The speed of the PC is better. No more annoying lags and pauses. Although my computer is quite well equipped, the system always lagged in Windows.

In Windows, I used Firefox as my web browser, and Thunderbird as my mail client. Both of them work the same way here, and these are two of my most frequently used programs. OpenOffice is quite satisfactory for my needs, and my favorite language, Python, is just here for me. I was also surprised to see that many Windows applications run very well in Linux under an emulator (such as WINE).

For those who are not familiar with Linux, Linux is by itself only a kernel, and together with the many parts obtained from the GNU project it becomes a complete operating system (many argue that GNU/Linux is a better name for the system, and I agree, but using this long name repeatedly is quite annoying). There are many ways to mix these parts together, so there are many Linux distributions. I use Ubuntu. As I had heard, and now actually experienced, Ubuntu is a good choice for new converts! It has a very convenient environment with a selection of well-maintained packages for everyday tasks. Ubuntu was surprisingly easy to install. The installation program did everything in a few easy steps and it even set up a dual boot system for me.

With the new ADSL Internet connection, now I have a system of my dreams. I had always dreamed of having a Unix system with a direct Internet connection from a local network and that is what I actually have now. Linux is a complete Unix-like system, with much more than Unix itself, and the ADSL modem/router, in fact, gives me a network with a direct Internet connection. It is just like in the books --pretty exciting!