Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Freshmeat.net, 1997-2014

jeffcovey.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 78 posts

Re: Freshmeat.net, 1997-2014

#21

Post by contingencies »

liedra wrote: post #9

I was an editor for freshmeat back in the early 2000s and it was a lot of fun. I was there when fm acquired themes.org and was one of the main people tasked with ensuring the HUGE db of themes was sanely migrated into the fm backend. We had stupidly high standards, and I don't think a lot of people really knew how much we threw out over the years, or how much we sanitised the entries (so much broken English!). We als…

Wow, never knew you did that! Hey, since you're in the UK, and he's just passed his two year anniversary, as a fellow Aussie you should make some academic excuses and go visit Assange in London already. I'm sure he'd enjoy catching up on your area.

(Re: reply. Err .. as an ethicist I'm not sure how you actually wrote that! If push came to shove - and I highly doubt they'll give you personal problems for visiting - have you no faith in your institution to protect you? Talk about chilling effects... you have to make sure you go now, so you maintain some self respect and score a fun lecture lead-in!)

Re: Freshmeat.net, 1997-2014

#23

Post by liedra »

contingencies wrote: post #21
liedra wrote: post #9

I was an editor for freshmeat back in the early 2000s and it was a lot of fun. I was there when fm acquired themes.org and was one of the main people tasked with ensuring the HUGE db of themes was sanely migrated into the fm backend. We had stupidly high standards, and I don't think a lot of people really knew how much we threw out over the years, or how much we sanitised the entries (so much broken English!). We als…

Wow, never knew you did that! Hey, since you're in the UK, and he's just passed his two year anniversary, as a fellow Aussie you should make some academic excuses and go visit Assange in London already. I'm sure he'd enjoy catching up on your area. (Re: reply. Err .. as an ethicist I'm not sure how you actually wrote that! If push came to shove - and I highly doubt they'll give you personal problems for visiting - ha…

Given I'm here on a work visa, I'd rather not have much cause for authorities to look closely at me until I've gone for citizenship :-)

Re: Freshmeat.net, 1997-2014

#24

Post by natch »

Writers, please don't assume your readers know what you are talking about. It is your job to explain it. The article should have started with a short explanation of what freshmeat was.

Re: Freshmeat.net, 1997-2014

#25

Post by nacs »

natch wrote: post #24

Writers, please don't assume your readers know what you are talking about. It is your job to explain it. The article should have started with a short explanation of what freshmeat was.

The very first sentence of the article contains a Wikipedia link that explains it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freshmeat

Re: Freshmeat.net, 1997-2014

#26

Post by giis »

At-least farewell mail to users would have been nice. I had around 5-6 projects with 70-80 subscribes at freshmeat.net . I'll be extremely glad, If freshmeat.net allowed its users to inform their project subscriber a 'big thank you' note for their support.

Thank you Freshmeat.net (aka freecode.com)

Re: Freshmeat.net, 1997-2014

#27

Post by liedra »

contingencies wrote: post #21
liedra wrote: post #9

I was an editor for freshmeat back in the early 2000s and it was a lot of fun. I was there when fm acquired themes.org and was one of the main people tasked with ensuring the HUGE db of themes was sanely migrated into the fm backend. We had stupidly high standards, and I don't think a lot of people really knew how much we threw out over the years, or how much we sanitised the entries (so much broken English!). We als…

Wow, never knew you did that! Hey, since you're in the UK, and he's just passed his two year anniversary, as a fellow Aussie you should make some academic excuses and go visit Assange in London already. I'm sure he'd enjoy catching up on your area. (Re: reply. Err .. as an ethicist I'm not sure how you actually wrote that! If push came to shove - and I highly doubt they'll give you personal problems for visiting - ha…

Yes, I'm an ethicist, but I also am a realist. In the current HE environment in the UK having a "permanent job" means very little these days. I'm all for bucking the system, but I have to be able to be in the system to effect change, and a lot of that isn't through token activities like this but working to change policy and governance structures (and educate the next generation!). I'd rather have a solid base from which to do that sort of thing than the ability to lose everything. It's not a whistleblower situation, I have nothing apart from a good story to really gain from meeting with him, and it's not particularly a principle thing because I think you have to pick your battles, and this isn't one of the ones I've picked.

Re: Freshmeat.net, 1997-2014

#28

Post by np422 »

js2 wrote: post #5

For the LNUX IPO, VA made F&F shares available to anyone who had contributed to Linux. They were fairly liberal in how they interpreted this, and I think the contribution I used to justify my purchase was the "-e" switch to chpasswd. Anyway, as I recall I was able to purchase 140 shares at $30. The day of the IPO it hit $300+ and I was too stupid to sell (gotta get those long term capital gains rates..doh). I finally…

As I recall, you numbers are correct, I was also invited to the IPO, but since I'm not an US citizen - the SEC made me jump through many hoops before I was allowed to buy something. I've never been much of an administrative minded person so I got bored halfway and never got around to buy any. I actually went through all of the doc-com bubble and y2k-mania without any substantial personal financial gain.

A few of my classmates from my university registered a funny domain name and made something that could be mistaken for a website, consisting mostly of static html-pages and sold that to some venture capitalists and they are still living of the capital from that sale.

So unlike you, I'm still kind of bitter about my missed VA-linux IPO....

Re: Freshmeat.net, 1997-2014

#30

Post by keithpeter »

contingencies wrote: post #21
liedra wrote: post #9

I was an editor for freshmeat back in the early 2000s and it was a lot of fun. I was there when fm acquired themes.org and was one of the main people tasked with ensuring the HUGE db of themes was sanely migrated into the fm backend. We had stupidly high standards, and I don't think a lot of people really knew how much we threw out over the years, or how much we sanitised the entries (so much broken English!). We als…

Wow, never knew you did that! Hey, since you're in the UK, and he's just passed his two year anniversary, as a fellow Aussie you should make some academic excuses and go visit Assange in London already. I'm sure he'd enjoy catching up on your area. (Re: reply. Err .. as an ethicist I'm not sure how you actually wrote that! If push came to shove - and I highly doubt they'll give you personal problems for visiting - ha…

"and I highly doubt they'll give you personal problems for visiting"

Er - are you living in the UK?

Post reply on HN