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Looking for Work After 25 Years of Octave

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Re: Looking for Work After 25 Years of Octave

#341

Post by pjmlp »

garaetjjte wrote: post #314
pjmlp wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Android phones run on a Java runtime with constrained access to native libraries. Google can replace Linux for something else, no one will notice. Normal people use shared hosting, with runtimes that don't require Linux. It could be something else and PHP, Perl, ASP, JEE stacks will still run. Normal people use Linux on devices, because it is the best OS OEMs can get their hands on without paying a dime for it.

Android apps can use native binaries. Replacing linux without breaking compatibility with apps is rather impossible (unless with some linux compatibility layer)

Have you ever used the NDK?

Android apps are only allowed to link to these specific set of libraries.

https://developer.android.com/ndk/guides/stable_apis.html

To put an hand to the cowboy programmers that were linking to system libraries not part of that list, starting with Android 7, they will be terminated if they try to do so.

https://developer.android.com/about/versions/nougat/android-...

The only form of binaries allowed on a standard Android device are shared objects.

The Native Activity is actually just the native method calls of https://developer.android.com/reference/android/app/NativeAc... that loads a shared object with a predefined name.

None of the stable NDK APIs are GNU/Linux specific and the POSIX layer isn't fully compliant with the standard, many APIs like e.g. SYS V IPC are missing.

http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~vatlidak/resources/POSIXmagazine...

https://roxanageambasu.github.io/publications/eurosys2016pos...

Rooted devices don't count, as that is not what people get on the store when they buy an Android device.

Re: Looking for Work After 25 Years of Octave

#342

Post by stillsut »

sandGorgon wrote: post #252
cabalamat wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My heart breaks each time I discover a free tool of recognition is developed by some altruistic talent who lives at a near poverty level while their work generates millions in added value. Maybe there could be a startup that helps people monetise their free software output?

+100 this is a YC-fundable startup. Here are the projects I can think of: 1. Celery - jeez. It runs half the world's high availability python software, yet has severe funding crunch. 2. Octave - obviously 3. Jupyter+Pandas - http://jupyter.org/ 4. Vue.js - http://vuejs.org/support-vuejs/

Here's how to do it: combine dev-bootcamps with FSF.

People already pay big bucks to learn how to code, use that to fund the senior devs, the junior devs gain the experience they need to change their career trajectory.

This guy should not have been the director and doing the majority of the legwork for 25 years! He needs to be put in a position to get an awesome job at either classic big tech corporate, then some high prestige research unit. And there should be an understudy in the queue set to take over the work, and eventually earn his reward in the afterlife.

Re: Looking for Work After 25 Years of Octave

#343

Post by HerraBRE »

wenc wrote: post #114
Jach wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did Octave ever have a larger mindshare? It always seemed like the cheapskate's Matlab substitute, but if you know enough Matlab where you might consider a substitute, you probably have a Matlab license already. (Or like me a need to run on an embedded Linux while you work on a python port + a distaste for proprietary software...) Anyway, my thought on why numpy seems more widespread is simple: efficiency. Even Matla…

The problem with Octave for most of its life was it never had a very good GUI, and that made it hard for university departments to adopt as course software. I know we tried to push Octave in our department, but it just never took off. That, plus the Mathworks offered some pretty good educational pricing. Octave also never had the span of toolboxes that MATLAB had. With MATLAB, you could always find fairly usable tool…

Something you didn't mention, which I suspect is a major factor in why promoting FOSS alternatives proves surprisingly difficult in education.

I remember when I was in university students were acutely aware that tools like PhotoShop, Microsoft* and MATLAB were used in businesses. I doubt this has changed.

Even if superior Free options had been available, many of them would still have opted for the "safe" proprietary options because they wanted to be sure they could get work and felt (rightly or wrongly) that it was important they could put the right product names on their resumés.

Re: Looking for Work After 25 Years of Octave

#344

Post by mrwilhelm »

JoelJacobson wrote: post #236

$5,000 (will be) donated. Tried to use PayPal. A Top Up to my PayPal account via Instant Bank Transfer worked fine, but when I tried to use the money by making a transfer to The Octave Guy, PayPal said my account had been frozen :-( I have emailed the author and requested bank details in order to make a regular bank transfer instead.

When they catch big amount of money transfer for new accounts, they disable in order to secure it. With some verification -probably id, pasaport - they will send the money eventually. So I suggest to verify Paypal account which will be faster probably take a day.

Re: Looking for Work After 25 Years of Octave

#346

Post by igk »

Tepix wrote: post #334
was_boring wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you mind elaborating on this? Perhaps an example?

I'm not sure he's correct. Donations to charitable non-profits are tax deductible both in Germany and the US IIRC.

I thought so as well, but we were asked for sponsorship instead of donations again and again, not because they wanted more of a service but "because I need an invoice"

It might be that the legal framework is there, but the process within companies is not. I'd be interested in someone correcting me if I misunderstood things

Re: Looking for Work After 25 Years of Octave

#347

Post by divbit »

mbreese wrote: post #324
supergreg wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if this should be done by a for profit startup or should be done by foundations like the FSF.

This shouldn't be for-profit. It should be a non-profit granting foundation where projects could apply for grants based on merit and need. Let the foundation handle the paperwork and accept donations on behalf of everyone. Have a board of directors made up of well respected open-source names, and you'd be well on your way.

Grant applications, at least in academia, I've heard take lots of time / etc away from actual work - Although if this became the norm maybe it would lower the hurdle - Alternatively, an nomination system could be used, or something based on stars / forks / etc of a repository?

Re: Looking for Work After 25 Years of Octave

#348

Post by scott00 »

gpvos wrote: post #293
chillydawg wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's all legal and fine, it's just how do you get it approved? You're not actually buying anything, nothing will stop working and no projects will be impacted without the PO. In a large company, this effectively makes it impossible. The solution is to just pretend you're buying a minimal support contract and that'll get approved no worries.

Shouldn't be a problem for smaller companies though? Or is the accountant going to withhold approval or something?

Every company has some process for buying something and paying for it. They have to. And similarly they have to have someone who, on a regular basis, approves purchases. Most don't have a process or person for approving donations. So at a minimum somebody has to think about it. Whether that's thinking about whether they have the authority to approve a donation, or thinking about who above them would need to sign off, or thinking about whether making donations is a good corporate policy, it's thinking instead of doing. It's a surprisingly significant barrier. Like how it shouldn't matter whether the buy button is reasonably sized and gray or giant and green, but in practice it does. You want to make it as easy and thoughtless as possible for people to give you money.

Re: Looking for Work After 25 Years of Octave

#349

Post by vbernat »

chii wrote: post #255
vbernat wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> GPL for non-profit projects, proprietary for enterprises. You are likely to have a hard time to get external contributions with that kind of licensing.

are there really that many external contributions for most projects? and if there are, i would imagine that it's a "simple matter of accounting" to distribute the wealth received accordingly.

I don't think external contributors are interested by a redistribution. If you make a proprietary license for work, people won't use it at work. If they won't use it at work, they won't contribute. I contribute to many open source projects because I use them at work.

Re: Looking for Work After 25 Years of Octave

#350

Post by zerr »

usernam wrote: post #329
toyg wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of those costs are general accountancy that you would have to do anyway, as long as you try to sell anything. AFAIK the big problem with VAT, from a seller perspective, is the fact that most governments, knowing full well that 90% of businesses fail in the first 2 years, ask for big upfront payments on estimate VAT remittances in that window, to make sure they don't lose out. After 3 years, as long as your accou…

At least in Italy, this is exactly the opposite. The first 5 years you are given a "relatively" easy start, giving you a false sense of the costs involved. After the 5 year mark, the costs suddenly becomes 5-7x, often making the company fail.

Is it possible to "restart" the company? Maybe with slightly different name :)
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