release 0.0.0.17

['Chris Harris' B. Harris]

Fare --

I didn't manage to see the "old" definition of communism, but this new 
one is still disagreeable with me.  While I think the Communist system is 
far from ideal (especially how it has been implimented historically), 
your definition can find nothing right with it.  In an ideal communist 
society, I think there lies a large benefit with the "safety net" that's 
there to help people get their footings.  Yes, it is too centralized, and 
yes, how Communism ends up being implimented usually (always?) messes 
things up.  But does the idea have no merit in theory at least?

(I think if we took this "safety net" concept and made it more 
distributed, we could come out with both a good economic model for a 
society as well as perhaps an interesting way to structure TUNES, as far 
as error/sanity checking/correct is concerned....)

I'd suggest you downplay the offensive nature of this entry.  I think 
with this small of a group, our glossary should be a consensus, and not 
only the views of one.  (Of course, I'm being rather hyprocritical by 
saying this -- who else has volunteered to help write glossary entries?)  
Just something to think about....

(Sorry if I sound like I'm flaming you.  Really not my intentions at all....)


As for an I-Project update, very little progress has been made.  I have, 
however, gotten my computer booting nicely, and more things are falling 
into place.  (Now have a PPP account to work with, for example.)  I've 
started to take Fare's suggestion of looking into TCL/Tk, and I'll get 
back to you folks on that when I download/read the docs and play with it 
a bit more.  Really should also do some re-work on the project web pages 
too....


Say, if I start actually doing some work on TUNES again, how many 
"active" people here will we have?  Perhaps we should take a poll of who 
here is actually (interested in) doing what, etc..  Because it doesn't 
seem like we really have that many TUNESers left.  =(  Wonder how much 
more attention we could grab from soliciting various newsgroups....

-Chris

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Be careful lest in casting out your devil you cast out the best thing 
that's in you." --Nietchie %% Me = Chris Harris (chharris@u.washington.edu)
Check out my web page: http://weber.u.washington.edu/chharris/

On Tue, 13 Jun 1995, Francois-Rene Rideau wrote:

> [About Communism]
> > + by being so harsh, you invite debates about words.
> > + maybe you can say `obviously inferior' or sth like that.
> > + i think you should cancel the entry.
>    Well actually, this was a quickly thrown in entry, so I emptied the
> Glossary's ToDo list. There may be other words that are not well defined.
> I admit that this one is particularly controversial. However, as long as
> nobody makes me doubt my positions are rock-solid (which I admit this
> previous entry was not), I'd like to keep these general political remarks
> in the Glossary: after all, computer politics and ethics are just a
> particular case of general politics and ethics, and the same general
> errors apply to both.

[snip]

> 
>    Here are new definitions I put in the Glossary:
> ------>8------>8------>8------>8------>8------>8------>8------>8------>8------
> <LI><A NAME="communism"><H3>Communism</H3></A>
> <DD>
>    A political theory that,
> from a <A HREF="#static">static</A> view of the world,
> and outrageous <A HREF="#rationalism">rationalism</A>,
> denies <A HREF="#liberalism">liberalism</A>,
> proposes <A HREF="#centralization">centralization</A> instead,
> and encourages <A HREF="#revolution">revolution</A> to achieve it.
> <DD>
>    A political <A HREF="#tradition">tradition</A>,
> that follows this theory,
> and led to dreadful massacres,
> as well as the ruin of many countries and billion lives.
> <P>