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In place of a legal notice, here is a blessing

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Re: In place of a legal notice, here is a blessing

#101
post #35

I almost feel like SQLite could have documentary made about it at this point. There are so many things about it that are just unique and fascinating.

I remember several years ago, I was considering pushing for some changes to our application to use a database like sqlite instead of a proprietary flat file format. I remember reading through the source and realizing how beautiful C source code could be, compared to the prop C code I was used to working on. That plus the constant improvement, stellar performance, and beautiful source code make Sqlite one of the top m…

FWIW: when i met drh for the first time in September 2011 i asked him, "what's the D in your name for, if i may ask?" His answer was, "only my mother gets to call me that."

PS: He goes by Richard.

Re: In place of a legal notice, here is a blessing

#102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's funny is the principals of what modern progresive intellectuals find right or wrong were introduced by Abrahamic (specifically Christian) teachings. Before that, the whole framework of the poor or meek being something everyone should protect wasn't a common idea. Even devout Atheists are basically Christian philosophers with scientific faith replacing theistic faith.

faith /feɪθ/ 1. complete trust or confidence in someone or something. Science is not something you have faith in. The entire point of science is allowing your beliefs to change when presented with evidence. That's the exact opposite of "complete trust". If anything, the only thing you need to have faith in is in the validity of your own experience - and that's a philosophical dilemma, not a scientific one. Doing scie…

The axioms at the foundation of modern science are also accepted by faith. How do you prove an axiom?

Follow the philosophical tree a little deeper and see if you can prove the foundation.

Re: In place of a legal notice, here is a blessing

#103
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Right, and a judge could rule that, in fact, it is possible to arbitrarily revoke free licensing at any time. On the basis of what law or treaty? First of all, dedication is not "free licensing". It is not licensing in any sense whatsoever. When you dedicate the work, you are no longer the holder, hence public domain is also what works fall into when the author is long dead. I'm not sure what piece of law you'd be…

> When you dedicate the work, you are no longer the holder I wonder how courts know how to distinguish between "I dedicate this work to..." - "my wonderful husband" - "my devoted readers" - "the revolution in $COUNTRY" - "the public domain". Or perhaps there's no distinction and you all owe me copyright fees for those worjs dedicated to me as a devoted reader.

Copyright assignment is what you’re describing, and yes they are able to distinguish, because dedication is not the word for that and more generally people aren’t stupid. Copyright assignment typically has a number of formal requirements to succeed including being in writing and being signed by the assignor. Next time tell the joke about a signed copy :)

Re: In place of a legal notice, here is a blessing

#104

That's pretty cool in some ways. In other ways it's interesting as a reflection of the author's obvious preference for subjective ethics. For example, what is good? A lot of people share concepts of what is good, but a lot of people really don't. Not because they're bad people, but because life circumstances typically go way deeper than good and evil, for instance. So--what is the author saying, really? Subjective st…

> "The author's obvious preference for subjective ethics" I doubt this interpretation, given SQLite's Code of Ethics ( https://sqlite.org/codeofethics.html ). Abrahamic faiths and subjective ethics don't go well together; "I am the way, the truth, and the life" doesn't leave much room for alternatives.

>Abrahamic faiths and subjective ethics don't go well together

christian existentialism is alive and well and has a loooong history.

(and john 3:16 is a lot more universalist than the people who wield it like a club seem to believe)

Re: In place of a legal notice, here is a blessing

#105

That's pretty cool in some ways. In other ways it's interesting as a reflection of the author's obvious preference for subjective ethics. For example, what is good? A lot of people share concepts of what is good, but a lot of people really don't. Not because they're bad people, but because life circumstances typically go way deeper than good and evil, for instance. So--what is the author saying, really? Subjective st…

Has it ever been shown in court that there's any real point to putting a license at the top of every file? I'd think that the whole project is licensed under some terms, rather than having to do each file individually.... Anyway, I think structuring it as a blessing means that it doesn't tell us much about the author's view of ethics. Which is to say, it is so clearly just a reminder to the reader that they should be…

The per-file license notice is for clarity, particularly when a single file is taken from a project and used separately. It's not a legal requirement.

Re: In place of a legal notice, here is a blessing

#106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

faith /feɪθ/ 1. complete trust or confidence in someone or something. Science is not something you have faith in. The entire point of science is allowing your beliefs to change when presented with evidence. That's the exact opposite of "complete trust". If anything, the only thing you need to have faith in is in the validity of your own experience - and that's a philosophical dilemma, not a scientific one. Doing scie…

The axioms at the foundation of modern science are also accepted by faith. How do you prove an axiom? Follow the philosophical tree a little deeper and see if you can prove the foundation.

I think you're talking about the axioms which form the modern foundation of mathematics, but mathematics isn't a science, at least not in the sense I'm referring to. Mathematics is a tool; it does not aim to describe the world, but rather provides a toolbox useful for doing so. It doesn't work the same way science based on observation does. There is no faith involved, but rather just arbitrary choices that result in a useful end result. That's good enough. It's like a protocol standard we all use because it makes our life easier. You don't need faith in HTTP to use it.

If you mean the foundations of the scientific method, e.g. things like trusting your perception of the world (to some extent), that indeed crosses over from science into philosophy. But that does not invalidate the scientific method, not does it mean all of science is faith-based; it just means we had to make some assumptions to be able to accomplish anything at all. Those assumptions are still something we can and should question, we just don't have any good way of testing them.

Re: In place of a legal notice, here is a blessing

#107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The axioms at the foundation of modern science are also accepted by faith. How do you prove an axiom? Follow the philosophical tree a little deeper and see if you can prove the foundation.

I think you're talking about the axioms which form the modern foundation of mathematics, but mathematics isn't a science, at least not in the sense I'm referring to. Mathematics is a tool; it does not aim to describe the world, but rather provides a toolbox useful for doing so. It doesn't work the same way science based on observation does. There is no faith involved, but rather just arbitrary choices that result in…

More towards the latter portion of your writing. Science is a branch of philosophy after all. It has axioms such as: "The world is objective, orderly, and comprehensible." It assumes the existence of the laws of logic, and their immutability.

Take those away and the whole edifice collapses.

https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/48844/axioms-...

Re: In place of a legal notice, here is a blessing

#108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're talking about the axioms which form the modern foundation of mathematics, but mathematics isn't a science, at least not in the sense I'm referring to. Mathematics is a tool; it does not aim to describe the world, but rather provides a toolbox useful for doing so. It doesn't work the same way science based on observation does. There is no faith involved, but rather just arbitrary choices that result in…

More towards the latter portion of your writing. Science is a branch of philosophy after all. It has axioms such as: "The world is objective, orderly, and comprehensible." It assumes the existence of the laws of logic, and their immutability. Take those away and the whole edifice collapses. https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/48844/axioms-...

It doesn't really 'collapse'.

You just have to put "everywhere the universe acts consistently, which it has in 100% of tests," at the start of everything you say.

Re: In place of a legal notice, here is a blessing

#109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More towards the latter portion of your writing. Science is a branch of philosophy after all. It has axioms such as: "The world is objective, orderly, and comprehensible." It assumes the existence of the laws of logic, and their immutability. Take those away and the whole edifice collapses. https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/48844/axioms-...

It doesn't really 'collapse'. You just have to put "everywhere the universe acts consistently, which it has in 100% of tests," at the start of everything you say.

To even do a "test" you are assuming the truth of the axioms already. There is really no escape from epistemology. Axioms are simply accepted on faith, and everything is built on top of them.

Re: In place of a legal notice, here is a blessing

#110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't really 'collapse'. You just have to put "everywhere the universe acts consistently, which it has in 100% of tests," at the start of everything you say.

To even do a "test" you are assuming the truth of the axioms already. There is really no escape from epistemology. Axioms are simply accepted on faith, and everything is built on top of them.

I don't need to assume axioms to tell you if a measurement I remember taking is consistent with them.
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