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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

#451

Post by CamperBob2 »

robjan wrote: post #345
Y_Y wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And I was arguing that it is a bad idea to do that in an international forum.

Could you not understand, given the context?

Actually, I agree with him/her. Using decimal points where commas belong, and vice versa, is an insanely stupid idea. People (and countries) who promulgate such ideas should not be encouraged. It's just begging for a Mars Climate Orbiter-type disaster.

I reeeeallly don't like it when I have to think about whether my bench multimeter is reading 115 volts or 115 millivolts.

Re: Looking for Work After 25 Years of Octave

#452

Post by grzm »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #451
robjan wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you not understand, given the context?

Actually, I agree with him/her. Using decimal points where commas belong, and vice versa, is an insanely stupid idea. People (and countries) who promulgate such ideas should not be encouraged. It's just begging for a Mars Climate Orbiter-type disaster. I reeeeallly don't like it when I have to think about whether my bench multimeter is reading 115 volts or 115 millivolts.

This is a localization (localisation?) issue: different locales have different conventions. It is important to decide on a standard on, say, a project. In the case of an international forum like HN, it makes sense to ask for clarification when necessary. Even if a convention were added to the FAQ, there will always be those who aren't aware of the convention. Cut each other some slack, at least until the HN community decides to launch a satellite.

Re: Looking for Work After 25 Years of Octave

#453

Post by dopeboy »

davexunit wrote: post #15
vmarsy wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you can also donate via the Free software foundation, I'm not sure what the author prefers, but the FSF donation can most likely be matched 100% if your company participates in a matching program. Hopefully, adding a "for 'GNU Octave' project" note should be enough.

There's a specific donation page for Octave. https://my.fsf.org/donate/working-together/octave Using the regular donation page with a note will just complicate the lives of the FSF staff.

Thanks for posting this link davexunit. Just donated $100. I used Octave in undergrad for some engineering classes. This doesn't solve the long term problem for the author but I hope it provides some temporary relief.

Re: Looking for Work After 25 Years of Octave

#454

Post by spiffytech »

scrollaway wrote: post #251
sandGorgon wrote: post #116

This post today is what is wrong with open source software. If someone knows jwe, then they should tell him that lots of corporates and startups WANT to support stuff like this. But you cannot give a paypal link and expect donations. As a company, I cant do that. I need an invoice. Hell, if you can get a business account, I daresay you will get subscriptions. I like to call this "gratitude-ware". Check out Sidekiq Pr…

I don't believe there is a single OSI or common license that makes it straightforward for an author to say "This has all the open source freedoms, except for commercial uses" and sell the exception. When I see people asking if they can do this, they get laughed out of the room by others who claim that "open source freedoms" does not restrict commercial use. This is kind of a serious issue. Artists get such a license,…

I like the AGPL for this. While it technically allows commercial endeavors, it forces the consuming software to also be licensed under AGPL if the software is considered "linked". Since businesses don't want to open source their core products, this encourages purchasing alternate licenses.

Unfortunately the AGPL has a chilling effect on using the software at all (see RethinkDB). I suspect the same would be true of any almost-but-not-quite-OSS license.

Re: Looking for Work After 25 Years of Octave

#455

Post by prirun »

jordigh wrote: post #366
radarsat1 wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. Two things though: * Developers, in general, are not business people. This may be different in Silicon Valley, but in a lot of the world, programmers have spent their life concentrating on one thing, learning to program. That doesn't mean they don't just "not know how" to start a business and find clients. It means they don't even know how to do the basic, first steps to registering one, knowing what to char…

These two points are very important. I've wanted to make Octave a business, but I just never knew how to start. I tried to find people who would help us get started, but the only ones I could find wanted to either compromise Octave's freedom (e.g. sell non-free extensions) or wanted some kind of way of turning Octave into a giant billion-dollar business very quickly. I couldn't find anyone who could help us do someth…

At least in Indiana, starting an LLC takes about 15 minutes online, filling out a form. Then you go to the IRS web site and get a tax id for the new LLC. Then a business account at any bank, under the LLC's tax id. This can all be done in 1 day. I'm not intending to be critical, but rather pointing out that you don't need to pay a lawyer or accountant to incorporate.

The key thing after that is to separate your income and expenses into personal and company. Never mix funds. Get a separate company credit card. You'll probably have to start out using the LLC's bank debit card - that's fine.

Re: Looking for Work After 25 Years of Octave

#456

Post by edblarney »

st3v3r wrote: post #438
edblarney wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Pepsi and Coke" are multibillion dollar commodity consumer brands - and have absolutely nothing to do with this. "No project comes into being fully established" Octave is well established, so he doesn't have that problem. For those that are 'new' - it's extremely difficult for governments to decide how to allocate funding. There are 1000's of 'open source' ideas. It's very hard to tell which one's would work, and ha…

""Pepsi and Coke" are multibillion dollar commodity consumer brands - and have absolutely nothing to do with this." Really? They're "established and entrenched products." I think they're a pretty good analogy here. Even if you are established and entrenched, you still have to advertise. "Paying money to each other as a fair exchange of value is how most of the world works, and it works well." Billions of people in po…

"Really? They're "established and entrenched products." I think they're a pretty good analogy here.

They are completely irrelevant to this discussion.

"Even if you are established and entrenched, you still have to advertise."

He has a widely adopted product without having advertised before. If he didn't advertise before, why would he have to now?

"Paying money to each other as a fair exchange of value is how most of the world works, and it works well." Billions of people in poverty, and rising income inequality would say otherwise."

Total rubbish. In the last 40 years, the number of people in the world living in abject poverty has been more than cut in half.

Once China ended their Communist insanity, and embraced free markets in the 1980's, they've lifted 100's of millions out of poverty and they are flourishing.

I'll gather you've never worked in a business role?

Re: Looking for Work After 25 Years of Octave

#457

Post by edblarney »

st3v3r wrote: post #440
edblarney wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He has a valuable, entrenched product that is apparently used by a lot of people and provides value for them. If those people won't pay a small sum to use this - or can find some easy substitute, then that could be an indication that this open-source project simply isn't that valuable. If there is no easy substitute, and he is creating consistent value, he should be able to get some kind of revenue for something, pos…

Your post once again goes to the extremely flawed and inaccurate "If people aren't going to pay, then your thing is not good" thought, which has been proven false time and time again.

I'm going to assume that you have no background in business or commerce, which is understandable, most people on HN don't.

If people are not willing to pay for something, then it's a very strong indication that it has no economic value.

Almost by definition.

When people pay $4.00 for a Cappuccino, and are not willing to pay $1 for 'an app' - then yes - 'the app' is worth less (to them) than a cup of coffee.

Sometimes there can transactional friction, IP issues, regulatory issues which distort the market etc., but generally speaking 'price' is a very good proxy for value.

If nobody is willing to pay money for this guys product, then it is worthless, and he should probably stop wasting his time by volunteering his time to make something that nobody derives any value out of.

Those people using it would in that case obviously have something else they can use that is 'just as good', or, they just don't need it at all.

After all - if they will pay $1 for a Bic pen, and not this software, well, that doesn't bode well for how useful this software is for them.

But mostly likely, would rather seem that this software is quite valuable to many researchers. Which is good, because they would likely indeed pay for it, just as they would a pen, a book, their computer, their lab-coat, their eyeglasses, their calculator or their lunch.

Re: Looking for Work After 25 Years of Octave

#458

Post by CamperBob2 »

grzm wrote: post #452
CamperBob2 wrote: post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, I agree with him/her. Using decimal points where commas belong, and vice versa, is an insanely stupid idea. People (and countries) who promulgate such ideas should not be encouraged. It's just begging for a Mars Climate Orbiter-type disaster. I reeeeallly don't like it when I have to think about whether my bench multimeter is reading 115 volts or 115 millivolts.

This is a localization (localisation?) issue: different locales have different conventions. It is important to decide on a standard on, say, a project. In the case of an international forum like HN, it makes sense to ask for clarification when necessary. Even if a convention were added to the FAQ, there will always be those who aren't aware of the convention. Cut each other some slack, at least until the HN community…

The thing is, though, the period was in use as a decimal point for hundreds of years, since the time of Napier and Kepler. And then someone in Europe decided to start using commas because, hey, why not, it's cool and fun to be different for no reason.

That kind of behavior needs to be called out.

Re: Looking for Work After 25 Years of Octave

#459

Post by [deleted] »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #458
grzm wrote: post #452

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a localization (localisation?) issue: different locales have different conventions. It is important to decide on a standard on, say, a project. In the case of an international forum like HN, it makes sense to ask for clarification when necessary. Even if a convention were added to the FAQ, there will always be those who aren't aware of the convention. Cut each other some slack, at least until the HN community…

The thing is, though, the period was in use as a decimal point for hundreds of years, since the time of Napier and Kepler. And then someone in Europe decided to start using commas because, hey, why not, it's cool and fun to be different for no reason. That kind of behavior needs to be called out.

[deleted]

Re: Looking for Work After 25 Years of Octave

#460

Post by shitgoose »

this is sad. I just rediscovered octave not long ago. I have been using R, but was never comfortable with it - yukky syntax, clunky RStudio. octave has clean and solid UI, nice syntax that sticks and reasonable base packages.

I wish you guys could develop a practice around octave, selling services, while keeping base product free.

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