If Stephen McIntyre is all about openness and taking advantage of the abhorrent disclosure of internal communications, why doesn't he follow suite by posting all of his personal e-mail correspondence, unedited for external review?
I'm sure there are more than a few gems.
Isn't the scientific ideal all about openness and reproducible analyses?
Yes, but when someone applies such a strong political ideology to twisting those analyses, how do you propose scientists respond?
Climate change has been so politicized by unqualified ideologues that I can hardly blame scientists for wishing to defend themselves from the worst of them.
If anything, these e-mails demonstrate that the data IS shared independently evaluated, but that the community has established political defenses to deal with political -- not scientific -- opponents.
To do otherwise would be naive. Complex topics fall easily to those who would politicize them.
These emails make it look like the new ideal is supporting the "correct" political agenda.
No, they demonstrate a clear interest in defending against the attacks of a very specific set of ideologues.
As someone who has had to defend engineering projects and people from angry corporate politics, I don't envy these climate change scientists in the least, and I certainly don't begrudge them their defensive positions.
Yeah, because this is definitely the argument this article is about...
You're saying that your solution isn't to develop for Free Software platforms?
I apologize for making assumptions based on your comment history. If that's not your solution, then how do you propose we developers resolve our issues instead of voicing our complaints?
I read McIntyre's site regularly, and find very little evidence of this. His 'political ends'?
McIntyre spent 30 years in the oil/gas exploration business ("mineral exploration"). You don't think there are some vested politics here?
You might argue successfully that his pedantic insistence on sources, data, and algorithms gets in the way of 'progress', but to say that this is because of his political views is a gross error.
There's plenty of room to distort the facts while reporting them. Fox News consistently claims to present "the facts" in a "fair and balanced" manner.
... I guess one reason for it is that BSD license put off more developers compared to GPLv2.
No, it was just timing. The AT&T lawsuit cast a palor on the BSDs just when Linux started hitting its stride. By the time the lawsuit was settled, Linux had dominant mindshare.
Same reason why MySQL is popular -- PHP gave it the mindshare. Same reason why PHP is popular -- it was one of the few options available at the time, and by the time better things came along, it was already firmly rooted.
He has a clear political agenda. He's not an independent scientist (he's not even a scientist).
What possible good can come of interacting with someone who -- in addition to being grossly underqualified -- has a consistent history of applying a political agenda without fail to their "science"?
This is the equivalent of Fox News factual reporting. Sometimes they get the facts right, but that doesn't mean they aren't twisting them.
If I had a persistent gadfly like Stephen McIntyre who would use every opportunity to twist my data and words to his own political ends -- and the media accordingly -- I might also behave in such an untoward manner regarding the release of data and internal communications.
I find the theft of internal communications abhorrent, the politicalization of the issue uninteresting, and I seriously doubt there's any real science to be gleaned from this entire sophomoric debacle.
If you stopped developing for the iPhone and started developing web applications or desktop applications or, indeed, almost any other type of software, you wouldn't have to ask anyone's permission to sell your software or improve your software.
Not everyone wants to write desktop or web applications.
My choice to work with the iPhone is a technical decision -- the hacker in me will stick with the platform because I love writing code for it -- at least until it's clear that it makes no sense for my business.
I'll continue to voice my concerns because I see the technical value of what Apple has created and the potential for Apple to improve.
If I were writing desktop applications, I would be writing them for the Mac, as well. I don't want to see Apple turn to the darkside, on the iPhone or otherwise.
[Edit] The downvoting to -0 on this comment and others in this thread is, in my opinion, entirely inappropriate. My argument is cogent, and if it doesn't match your worldview I might suggest that you attempt a cogent reply in return, rather than downvoting opinions you disagree into the negatives.
Please support the claim that they "hid" their data. Note that citing an unqualified politically biased source is not adequate support for such a serious scientific claim.
As a scientist why would I invest my time in providing additional support to someone that will simply twist whatever assistance is provided to support his own agenda?
As a programmer I wouldn't certainly not waste my time assisting someone who merely intended to smear my project in his blog to meet his own political ends.
You're ranting like a loon about brainwashing, cheering on the hacking of private e-mail, and you're getting upvoted for it?
If my e-mail was hacked and out-of-context quotes were levied to take ignorant pot shots at my work, I would be beyond livid. This behavior is absolutely inappropriate and I hope the perpetrator is caught and jailed.
Are these people telling me i can't smoke in front of my computer?
No, they're telling you that they won't fix damage caused by smoking, and they won't force their computer technicians to clean up a disgusting and harmful mess of sticky tar and dust.
Other than Lessig, that trio does not even begin to represent me or innumerable other open source developers. RMS and Linus represent GPL and Linux developers, who are are only one component of the broader community.
The GPL/Linux ideals are clearly and fundamentally opposed to my own, and I would be insulted if RMS and Linus accepted the award on behalf of the open source community at large.
Your argument makes the unfounded assumption that those vendors would have done the work you "lost" if the code had been GPL licensed.
As a counterpoint, FreeBSD has progressed at a steady clip -- I fail to see how it is significantly behind Linux, and is significantly ahead in many areas.
Read the parent comment. I was replying to the specific statement that one cannot download apps onto the device other than through the App Store, not addressing whether it is useful or not as a channel to distribute apps.
I can get out and push my car, but that doesn't make it a hybrid.
As to your other points, sign up for the Enterprise program.
The enterprise program does not allow for external distribution and is not useful (or even permitted) outside of large enterprise organizations.
I'm sure there are more than a few gems.
Isn't the scientific ideal all about openness and reproducible analyses?
Yes, but when someone applies such a strong political ideology to twisting those analyses, how do you propose scientists respond?
Climate change has been so politicized by unqualified ideologues that I can hardly blame scientists for wishing to defend themselves from the worst of them.
If anything, these e-mails demonstrate that the data IS shared independently evaluated, but that the community has established political defenses to deal with political -- not scientific -- opponents.
To do otherwise would be naive. Complex topics fall easily to those who would politicize them.
These emails make it look like the new ideal is supporting the "correct" political agenda.
No, they demonstrate a clear interest in defending against the attacks of a very specific set of ideologues.
As someone who has had to defend engineering projects and people from angry corporate politics, I don't envy these climate change scientists in the least, and I certainly don't begrudge them their defensive positions.