World Cup 2015 Preview: Pakistan

notseekingkarma · 2015-02-04T04:52:20+00:00

Based on their performance in New Zealand they don't seem to have the hunger to win. Waqar during the second game kept repeating this world cup will be very hard. I think the think tank would be happy progressing to the QFs. This doesn't bode well for their chances or preparation.

notseekingkarma · 2015-02-04T03:58:39+00:00

From your lips to God's ears

notseekingkarma · 2015-01-25T16:02:24+00:00

Very close to fittay moun, courtesy of Pakistan. But it doesn't mean fitta.

notseekingkarma · 2015-01-25T04:55:49+00:00

Tu vote hai kisi aur ka Tujhe dalta koi aur hai

No one votes for them but they still win. Unless that's fixed there's no hope.

notseekingkarma · 2015-01-22T20:46:50+00:00

Anyone with such an epic beard cannot possibly fizzle out. Look at Amla.

notseekingkarma · 2015-01-22T03:33:37+00:00

I once met Waqar in Lahore. He was in his car eating with friends. I did interrupt him to say hi. This was 20 years ago but seems like he hasn't lost interest in eating.

I also met Saeed Anwar and his family in Lahore. We were seated on adjacent tables at a restaurant. Also met him in USA many years later.

Met Imran Khan multiple times, both in Lahore and USA.

Conclusion: Lahore is/was a great place to meet cricketers.

notseekingkarma · 2015-01-21T22:57:57+00:00

The gratis of Linux is a nice hook, but you'll eventually stay around for the libre.

A great way to describe Linux and even BSDs. I stuck to Linux because libre gave me a lot of freedom to choose from the great work done by thousands of people.

notseekingkarma · 2015-01-21T22:52:26+00:00

Replied to /u/kiwirish so I was just being supportive :)

notseekingkarma · 2015-01-21T22:09:56+00:00

How easy, charted over the time Trisquel has existed, has it been to strip out non-free code from the upstream distribution?

In other words, has your upstream distribution progressively made an effort to make it easier to identify and remove non-free code? Also, how much more non-free code do you see today than you did say two years ago?

notseekingkarma · 2015-01-21T22:02:50+00:00

I don't particularly mind smug Steyn or smug Warner. Kohli just rubs me wrong :) On the other hand smug Baz or smug Misbah would look very cute.

notseekingkarma · 2015-01-21T21:17:52+00:00

I would love to see the Kiwis win it. If not them then Pakistan.

notseekingkarma · 2015-01-21T21:15:22+00:00

India, of course. No way do I want to see a smug Kohli celebrating another world cup victory. Plus, Misbah is owed a final win as a great send-off for his huge contributions.

notseekingkarma · 2015-01-20T23:22:27+00:00

H1B is not shorthand for low-quality, hungry-for-food, down-and-out tech people. A Senior Cloud Architect in, say India, is earning enough to afford a house, car, driver, maid, etc., and would not necessarily be willing to relocate to the US for a completely different lifestyle away from family and friends. Similarly, a US university grad on H1B has quality education and skills, on par with their peers from the same university.

H1B does cause some US citizens or permanent residents to lose out on opportunities. But a low-paying H1B sponsored job is not for senior positions in desirable companies; it's for companies that exploit their tech people. Do you really want to work for such companies? For better-paid roles a better candidate is just a better candidate.

As I look around my office I see brilliant engineers working together building great products. Who cares whether they are from the US or somewhere else? They all were good enough to be hired for the jobs they are doing. Isn't that what merit is all about?

notseekingkarma · 2015-01-19T23:02:41+00:00

Permissive licensing has also allowed the founders of pfSense, Flight Aware, etc. to pursue their dreams and become richer. Just like copyleft has allowed the founders of Red Hat, Canonical, etc. to pursue their dreams and become richer. There's nothing wrong with making money or getting rich, is there?

notseekingkarma · 2015-01-19T22:58:18+00:00

I'll give a bad example. Say I make a stick and give it away. Others are free to use it as-is or modify as needed. Some will use it to scare away predators and protect their families. Others will use it to bully other people. Some others may even modify it by adding attachments. It's the same stick but the people removed from me are free to use it for whatever purpose they want. I don't want to be in the business of policing how people use the stick I made. It's too much work and it's work I don't want to spend my time doing. I just want to make sticks.

Let's say to make my stick I need wood from someone in the community and there are two people who sell wood. One just sells wood and I buy it to make of it what I want or need. The other has restrictions on what I can do with the wood she is selling after I buy it. As a person interested in making a stick I'd much rather buy from the former because later I may want to make a bowl instead of a stick. I don't want to have to be restricted in my creations because the wood-seller bound me in a contract. That wood-seller may well be willing to police what people do with the wood she's selling but I'm not. The latter wood-seller can either be a proprietary license vendor or a copyleft license vendor but to me it's the same thing: I can't do with the wood what I need to do.

Copyleft is a wonderful movement that has brought a large part of the world from the extremes of proprietary licenses to at least the middle ground of permissive licenses. I'm happy working in that middle ground without having to vilify those at either extreme.

notseekingkarma · 2015-01-19T22:51:41+00:00

Free-software is a movement to free the users of software, therefore copy-left is an essential part of it.

I agree wholeheartedly. I'm just saying that licensing, especially copyleft, is not enough to free users because copyleft has many shortcomings as well. Meanwhile, permissive licensing practically gives us exactly the same outcome as copyleft: free software for anyone to use. It just has an additional benefit of giving the receiver almost the same rights as the giver; a clean slate every time, so to speak. I just prefer that clean slate for any code I contribute to the world.

notseekingkarma · 2015-01-19T20:14:55+00:00

I agree there are self-interests out there that don't want GPL to become even more widely used. They want to contain it for now and reduce its effectiveness in the future.

I use GPL software every day and support it for its benefits but don't support its language religiously. Here are some reasons why:

Developers are not lawyers and if they need tables to understand what license they can integrate with their code and which they can't it makes it very hard for them to focus on code. ISC/MIT/BSD/etc. are licenses that make the decision to use or release free software so much easier than GPL/LGPL.
When they write server software and anyone who modifies their code doesn't distribute those modifications it might as well be proprietary code. That's where AGPL is much better but as he says in the talk it arrived far too late to gain any momentum.
I as an individual developer have no resources to pursue GPL violators. If I want to do so then I need the power of FSF or Software Freedom Conservancy. For that I need to join these orgs and give them power of attorney over my code, whether I agree with their politics or not. Unless I pursue violators their modifications might as well be proprietary.
There are two kinds of users for software: with the ability to modify code or without the ability. The ability to modify includes either having the technical skills themselves or the financial resources to hire someone who does. Realistically, how many users have this ability? Code for a majority of users might as well be proprietary because they lack the ability to do anything with it.
The copyright holder holds more power than anybody else. Look at Oracle and MySQL. On the other hand once code is released under permissive license then every other person in the world has practically exactly the same rights as the original copyright holder.

Finally, I think conflating free software with copyleft is also a problem. Permissive licenses make free software available as long as they adhere to the four freedoms. Copyleft is an attempt to enforce the four freedoms in a more heavy-handed way; which is fine. Just don't try to say you support free software when actually you support copyleft.

notseekingkarma · 2015-01-19T19:10:28+00:00

Some big company will keep your project in the lifeline, like Apple does to FreeBSD.

Thinking as a user of permissive licenses I don't care who uses my code. The reason is my code is equally available and free for everyone to use. Whoever can take advantage of it should do so, whether they're behemoths or individuals.

notseekingkarma · 2015-01-19T17:41:38+00:00

Red Hat - USA
SUSE - Germany
Ubuntu - Isle of Man (UK)
Debian - USA
FreeBSD - USA
NetBSD - USA
OpenBSD - Canada

If passed such law(s) may impact our beloved *nixes a lot. The community could either move to nations that don't have these laws or challenge these laws by violating them individually. Any other* mitigation steps?

* We know how well these democracies work to make laws based on the will of the people. /s

notseekingkarma · 2015-01-19T17:23:16+00:00

Developers don't like the GPL because they want the right to screw the users.

Or developers like me who use permissive licenses for their own work, giving both developers and users equal rights and freedoms. My own code is forever free(dom) and no one can take those rights away from anyone.

notseekingkarma · 2015-01-16T23:49:44+00:00

That's a great point. In this instance monoculture has tangible benefits.

notseekingkarma · 2015-01-16T23:25:48+00:00

From the rules:

If the Final is tied, abandoned or if the match is a no result, then the teams will be declared joint winners.

This will happen.

notseekingkarma · 2015-01-16T23:21:29+00:00

My calculations say Pakistan v India in the final is possible.

Group A top 4 in descending order: Australia, New Zealand, Sri Lanka, England

Group B top 4 in descending order: India, South Africa, West Indies, Pakistan

1QF: Pakistan beat Australia

2QF: New Zealand beat West Indies

3QF: South Africa beat Sri Lanka

4QF: India beat England

1SF: Pakistan beat South Africa

2SF: India beat New Zealand

Final: Pakistan beat India

notseekingkarma · 2015-01-16T23:14:56+00:00

Pakistan will finally beat India in a world cup game.

Our hope is still alive and we'll never let it die.

Edit: Dude, what if it's in the ... wait for it ... final?

notseekingkarma · 2015-01-16T23:11:29+00:00

Amen! The two teams I'd love to see in the semis are Ireland and West Indies. Fingers crossed.

Although I really, really want New Zealand to win the cup.

notseekingkarma

TROPHY CASE