The Long Beard's Revenge

sheddingbikes.com

16 points·kolektiv··4 comments

Previously discussed at http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1788558.

Ah, my apologies, I looked for it but didn't find it. I note that the previous submission seems to have exact same URL, something which I thought was prevented by the submission process. A bug perhaps? Sorry, nevertheless.

As I understand, the news.arc program keeps a list of submitted URLs in memory, which go away when the program is restarted(?). In either case, old URLs can be re-submitted.

This is not always bad - some people may not have seen this the first time, and it is an interesting article. However, I always find it valuable when people point out earlier discussion, and I knew I'd seen it before, so I pointed at the earlier discussion.

For a more reliable view of what has/hasn't been posted, consider searchyc.com.

IMO, even more important: open APIs and freemium.

Among the strongest selling points of open source were:

- The ability to extend software easily.

- Freedom to share software with anyone.

Nowadays, almost every web app comes with a developer friendly API that let's you extend its functionality. Furthermore, most web apps adopt a freemium model which means no initial cost (unlike open source which frequently requires technical skills and/or a server).

IMO, open source will continue to thrive in the realm of developer tools and libraries but will slowly decline in the realm of consumer apps.

As a side note, it doesn't help that RMS is completely nuts. (Disclosure: writing this from Ubuntu)

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