LWN: Comments on "Rust's Redox OS could show Linux a few new tricks (InfoWorld)"

Oh cool, ye olde microkernel-vs-bloat argument again

nix — Tue, 12 Apr 2016 16:52:58 +0000

why does this thread exist it's like watching a comment thread on CNN try to reverse engineer a kernel from scratch

Seriously, I would pay money to read that. Black comedy is always worthwhile.

Oh cool, ye olde microkernel-vs-bloat argument again

nix — Tue, 12 Apr 2016 16:51:20 +0000

I was specifically talking about the clinical panels, not NICE, so my comment was correct :P

Oh cool, ye olde microkernel-vs-bloat argument again

hummassa — Sun, 10 Apr 2016 15:19:22 +0000

You were too subtle in your answer. :)

When one pays for someone else's healthcare, it's a selfish thing to do, too, because one does not want to be surrounded by sick and infectious people.

Oh cool, ye olde microkernel-vs-bloat argument again

anselm — Sat, 09 Apr 2016 07:24:45 +0000

Yes, you'll have to pay some taxes that goes to the public healthcare even if you don't use it (just like you have to pay taxes for other things you don't necessarily use).

I don't have kids but part of my taxes fund the public school system. This is OK by me because I don't like to be surrounded by uneducated people.

Oh cool, ye olde microkernel-vs-bloat argument again

tao — Fri, 08 Apr 2016 09:50:07 +0000

Wanting public healthcare does *NOT* imply wanting a government monopoly on healthcare. If that's what you believe then no wonder you're opposed to public healthcare.

In reality though, pretty much every country that has public healthcare also has private options.
I'm sure there are countries that don't allow private options, and there sure are parties that don't want to allow them, such as the (ex-communist) Left Party in Sweden.

But that's not what the discussion has been about here, last time I checked, not what has been suggested in the U.S., etc.

Yes, you'll have to pay some taxes that goes to the public healthcare even if you don't use it (just like you have to pay taxes for other things you don't necessarily use). That doesn't prevent you from using private options instead if you can afford them (and if the taxes for the public option would mean that you cannot afford the private option, you realistically couldn't afford the private option in the first place).

Oh cool, ye olde microkernel-vs-bloat argument again

dlang — Thu, 07 Apr 2016 16:25:14 +0000

By the way, please think about the terminology that you are using in the discussion. So far things have been pretty civil (which I assume is why the moderators have not stepped in to shut down the discussion, even though it's wildly off topic)

If it's fair for you to say that I want to spend more money to kill people, then saying that you want death panels is also fair game.

The reality is that for any method of allocating medical care, there is always going to be another method that will save some lives that the first would loose, and that would loose some lives that the first would save. It's very reasonable for people to disagree as to which system is better.

While they may seem attractive in the short run, I believe that in the long run monocultures are always bad. It doesn't matter if it's in software, politics, science, health care, or anything else. It's important for people to be able to disagree.

Oh cool, ye olde microkernel-vs-bloat argument again

paulj — Thu, 07 Apr 2016 16:15:12 +0000

Right, because not wanting government regulation in one area means you shouldn't want it in any area. Also, government regulations are _completely the same thing_ as government provided public services. Uh, huh.

The real-world is far more nuanced than that, and so can people's views be.

I want the least amount of regulation and government involvement that is necessary to give certain guarantees of some properties - universally. In some areas that means little or no regulation/involvement. In other areas, it turns out you do want regulations and/or state involvement - where a purely private approach has been shown to be inefficient.

E.g., environmental concerns, turns out that to avoid tragedy of the commons effects, you need a collective (i.e. public - through the agreed government) policy on what is and is not acceptable to be disposed of into the shared environment. And you need punitive measures and enforcement to make such collective policies meaningful. Similarly, turns out that some services appear to be best delivered by the state, such as the service of a universal level of health-care (if your society thinks that is something people should have).

Oh cool, ye olde microkernel-vs-bloat argument again

dlang — Thu, 07 Apr 2016 14:15:06 +0000

> oh seriously come on this is awful why does this thread exist

Short, flip answer "because someone is wrong on the Inernet" ;-)

longer, more serious answer

too many people make the logical mistake of going from "I'm good at this computer stuff" to "I must be really smart" to "everyone who's smart is going to agree with my on other topics"

For crying out loud, we can't even agree on the important things like EMACS vs vi, BSD vs GPLv2 vs GPLv3, and systemd. Why should we agree on completely unrelated topics?

Once in a while I feel the need to remind people that not everyone agrees with them.

I find it both amusing and terrifying that people who are so opposed to Government involvement and regulation in their field of expertise should turn around and be so adamant that the same Governments should have a monopoly on health care.

Oh cool, ye olde microkernel-vs-bloat argument again

mjg59 — Thu, 07 Apr 2016 08:33:31 +0000

Full marks for not demanding that systems that save people's lives should start spending far more money to kill a bunch of them instead oh seriously come on this is awful why does this thread exist it's like watching a comment thread on CNN try to reverse engineer a kernel from scratch

Oh cool, ye olde microkernel-vs-bloat argument again

tao — Thu, 07 Apr 2016 08:16:33 +0000

I'm not aware of any public healthcare that includes free (non-accident/birth defect related) plastic surgery, so that bit is a strawman.

As for birth control -- how about because the alternative tends to be more expensive for society?

Cancer treatment -- how about for the same reason you pay for the world's largest military force?

Oh cool, ye olde microkernel-vs-bloat argument again

dlang — Thu, 07 Apr 2016 07:51:57 +0000

the difference is that I don't insist that you change your system to match the one I prefer.

Oh cool, ye olde microkernel-vs-bloat argument again

paulj — Wed, 06 Apr 2016 21:51:04 +0000

Oh, and I'd hazard a guess that having panels of health care professionals, health-specialising statisticians and economists, and epedemiologists, try work out strategic health care guidelines to optimise population-wide health-care outcomes with an eye on cost-effectiveness, is a major factor in why the likes of the UK gets better health care outcomes for less money than the USA. ;)

Oh cool, ye olde microkernel-vs-bloat argument again

paulj — Wed, 06 Apr 2016 21:35:53 +0000

Oh, they develop the clinical guidelines and set economic health priorities which will determine roughly what treatments are recommended under what conditions. Well away from hospitals and clinical practice.

Actual clinical practitioners will then determine the appropriate treatment for a specific case, taking those guidelines into account. So it's not completely absolute, and there's lots of clinical leeway. However, the overall guidelines do explicitly take cost effectiveness and economic considerations into account.

There was a documentary a few years ago that looked into how NICE worked, followed the meetings and spoke to those involved. It was very interesting.

Oh cool, ye olde microkernel-vs-bloat argument again

paulj — Wed, 06 Apr 2016 21:30:17 +0000

Your comment is incorrect, cost effectiveness most definitely is one factor that NICE take into account in making their recommendations. Now, health benefits are weighted much more heavily than the expense, but expense *is* a consideration. See:

https://www.nice.org.uk/article/pmg6/chapter/7-assessing-...

Oh cool, ye olde microkernel-vs-bloat argument again

dlang — Wed, 06 Apr 2016 21:16:16 +0000

>> why is it my responsibility to pay for your medical care as well as my medical care and my family's medical care?

> Because disease spreads, and doesn't care about who paid or any such paltry intra-species nonsense.

If we were just talking about things like immunizations, you could have a point.

But when we are talking about Birth Control, Breast Reduction/Enlargement, or even Cancer treatment, that's not something that spreads if I don't pay for it.

Oh cool, ye olde microkernel-vs-bloat argument again

nix — Wed, 06 Apr 2016 21:12:45 +0000

why is it my responsibility to pay for your medical care as well as my medical care and my family's medical care?

Because disease spreads, and doesn't care about who paid or any such paltry intra-species nonsense. All it sees is a nice field of cells it can eat, who cares what people they're part of?

Oh cool, ye olde microkernel-vs-bloat argument again

nix — Wed, 06 Apr 2016 21:11:02 +0000

no system in the world can provide all possible coverage to everyone. There is a finite (note, not fixed, but finite) amount of health care that is available. If the Government controls all of it, then they will have to decide who gets care and who doesn't. If you don't meet their criteria, tough luck.

Sure! The "government" in question, the fabled "death panels", is in-hospital committees of clinicians and (often) clinical researchers. I'm not sure who you'd imagine would be better-placed to decide who could be saved and who could not: insurance administrators, perhaps?

(Financial matters are explicitly not considered by these people: if something costs too much, tough, let the hospital bureaucracy scream but they're not going to let people die who they could save. There is more or less no machinery in the NHS for saying "this guy is saveable but he would cost too much", thank goodness. Yet the resulting system is still much cheaper than the US one.)

Oh cool, ye olde healthcare argument again

nix — Wed, 06 Apr 2016 21:06:19 +0000

The fact is, the NHS works for the majority of people, because the majority of people aren't the typical LWN readership - well educated, well paid, able to PAY the insurance premiums etc etc.

Even those of us who are well-educated and well-paid by national standards might not be able to pay, depending on our medical histories. I looked into private healthcare a few years back, when my then boss believed that it would be an excellent way to cut down the number of working days lost to, uh, colds (private medicine can cure the common cold now?!).

I was quoted premiums starting at £30,000 per annum. That was close to my total post-tax-and-commuting earnings (not high because I don't ask for pay rises etc, but still significantly above the average wage). They wouldn't tell me why they quoted that, of course (freedom!) but I speculate that they looked at my history of occasional anaphylactic shock attacks from exploding hay fever and my interesting birth history (which included 'then-youngest on continent to have procedure $FOO', being wheeled out in a few lectures in an incubator, and a thing in the Lancet), and decided "we're not taking this guy on, ever".

Merely being well paid wouldn't be enough for that -- I'd need to be exceptionally well-paid, director- or consultant-level paid, to handle that. And this is in the UK, where even private medical costs are far lower than in the US! (in part because if anything actually difficult happens, they dump you right back on the NHS again, and why on earth pay for private care in that case?)

Rust's Redox OS could show Linux a few new tricks (InfoWorld)

hummassa — Wed, 06 Apr 2016 07:05:35 +0000

well, actually, that would depend on your patches really NOT being a derivative work on the GPL'd parts in the legal sense of "derivative works" (as per 17 USC 101, for example, if the jurisdiction in casu was the USofA: <<A “derivative work” is a work based upon one or more preexisting works, such as a translation, musical arrangement, dramatization, fictionalization, motion picture version, sound recording, art reproduction, abridgment, condensation, or any other form in which a work may be recast, transformed, or adapted. A work consisting of editorial revisions, annotations, elaborations, or other modifications which, as a whole, represent an original work of authorship, is a “derivative work”.>>)

In my jurisdiction, the definition of a derivative work is even more nuanced (if your work uses the "mis en scene" of preexisting one it can be construed as a derivative work.) OTOH, my jurisdiction has additional "fair use" protections applicable to software (it renders, among other things, the "no virtual machines" clauses of EULAs null and void).

Oh cool, ye olde microkernel-vs-bloat argument again

bronson — Tue, 05 Apr 2016 16:59:35 +0000

When we in the US had that discussion five years ago, right-wing politicians called them death panels and managed to spin things out of control: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_panel

I hope we can try again when we're in a calmer state of mind.

Oh cool, ye olde microkernel-vs-bloat argument again

Wol — Tue, 05 Apr 2016 15:15:50 +0000

Yes - l-dopa.

And it is a bit of a crapshoot.

The problem is that because dopamine is so pervasive, and we have a poor understanding of the detail, we don't understand why different people react differently. My guess is that dopamine production is shared amongst many different types of nerves, and production fails in different ways, leading to different problems. Then there's the sensitivity of the receptors, and the ability of the body to compensate ...

It gets messy.

Cheers,
Wol

Oh cool, ye olde microkernel-vs-bloat argument again

nye — Tue, 05 Apr 2016 11:10:50 +0000

>Unfortunately, that "wonder drug" I mentioned - which is over 50 years old - has dreadful side effects, so if you're unlucky enough to need it many people underdose heavily because they consider the side effects as being worse than the disease

Are you talking about L-DOPA, or something a bit less like a sledgehammer? Dosing quantities for L-DOPA seem like basically guesswork anyway from what I've read?

Oh cool, ye olde microkernel-vs-bloat argument again

anselm — Tue, 05 Apr 2016 11:10:12 +0000

VIPs coming to the USA for upscale private-clinic treatment? Mother Teresa comes to mind. Not that the old bat wasn't running an award-winning “hospital” in India herself …

Oh cool, ye olde microkernel-vs-bloat argument again

nye — Tue, 05 Apr 2016 11:04:10 +0000

>How many times do you see stories of VIPs from around the world being flown to the US for treatment that they can't get elsewhere?

Um, never? I sometimes see stories about people *leaving* the US because they want decent treatment, if that helps?

Rust's Redox OS could show Linux a few new tricks (InfoWorld)

paulj — Tue, 05 Apr 2016 09:44:44 +0000

So, the scenario you have in mind isn't 100% clear, but from:

http://lwn.net/Articles/682463/

it seems possible you think that as long as you distribute the source of the GPL code that you use in your programme under the GPL, that you can then do what you like with your "own" code (i.e. that code typed directly by you), as long as you don't distribute binaries of the whole thing. E.g., I assume that therefore you think you could distribute your own source code under what ever licence you wish, because your own source code could never derive from that other GPL source code.

My understanding from lawyers is that that need not be correct. Source code you have typed yourself can still derive from other source code. So your "own" source code could derive from the GPL source code, and so if you distributed that "own" code you'd have to honour the GPL licence of the other source code it derives from - even if distributed in source form.

Rust's Redox OS could show Linux a few new tricks (InfoWorld)

Wol — Tue, 05 Apr 2016 09:27:20 +0000

iirc (I haven't gone back to check) I think my responsibilities are limited to ensuring the recipient can tell the difference between my code and someone else's?

Beyond that, if I distribute *as source*, I can pretty much ignore what the GPL says because the act of handing over the source fulfils my obligations, no?

(So I'm not saying the GPL doesn't apply :-) I'm saying the requirements are so trivial that it would be hard work NOT to comply :-) I believe some companies have succeeded, though, with either that or the MIT licence!)

Cheers,
Wol

Oh cool, ye olde microkernel-vs-bloat argument again

tao — Tue, 05 Apr 2016 08:22:08 +0000

I don't have kids, yet I happily pay taxes for public education, daycare, etc.

I don't use public healthcare -- I have private healthcare through work. But I still happily pay taxes for public healthcare.
Because those who aren't lucky enough to have private healthcare tend to be those who cannot afford it either.

Rust's Redox OS could show Linux a few new tricks (InfoWorld)

paulj — Tue, 05 Apr 2016 08:12:27 +0000

Wol,

I don't think you're correct. The GPL applies to _all_ the GPL source (and derivatives) whether you distribute a GPL work or source or binary form. If you distribute in binary form, there is just additional text around how to discharge your responsibilities re the source.

Oh cool, ye olde microkernel-vs-bloat argument again

paulj — Tue, 05 Apr 2016 07:50:51 +0000

It's not a problem. You get panels of medical, statistical and economic experts together. You give them a budget. They use scientific studies and work to optimise public health outcomes within the allocated budget, based on evidence. Hard, rigorous work, and (like optimisation in CS without global knowledge) sometimes has go by heuristics, but it's quite possible. See NICE in the UK: https://www.nice.org.uk/ .

Now, some stuff does get politicised, e.g. expensive new cancer medicines may not be funded cause the evidence isn't there to suggest it is cost-effective and you'd save more people spending that money elsewhere. Some silly sewspapers run enough "Heartless NHS denies cancer patients life-saving drugs!" headlines, make it a political issue and next thing you know the Prime Minister finds £600m of money to allocate exclusively to new cancer medicines. However, that happens outside the NICE approach, and it's still at least democracy in action.

Oh cool, ye olde microkernel-vs-bloat argument again

paulj — Tue, 05 Apr 2016 07:41:37 +0000

You can't opt out of contributing to the public system, however you are still free to go to private providers if you wish (in the UK). In the likes of Scotland, you really don't need to though - NHS Scotland is just excellent.

Oh cool, ye olde microkernel-vs-bloat argument again

bronson — Tue, 05 Apr 2016 05:01:10 +0000

> How many times do you see stories of VIPs from around the world being flown to the US for treatment that they can't get elsewhere?

I see far more US citizens going to Canada and Mexico for treatment and drugs. Looks like 600,000 in 2012, hard to find more recent numbers. How many VIPs are you talking about?

Oh cool, ye olde microkernel-vs-bloat argument again

neilbrown — Tue, 05 Apr 2016 04:41:30 +0000

I would restate that as:

> Nobody seems willing to leave out any type of care, so it ends up *not pleasing anyone*.

Yes, it is hard - a constant balancing act. Everyone will have their own opinion that either too much is covered or not enough - and often both.
But the fact that something is difficult is not a good justification not to try.

Oh cool, ye olde microkernel-vs-bloat argument again

mjg59 — Tue, 05 Apr 2016 04:04:56 +0000

For the same reasons you can't opt out of paying for the police or military, no matter how much you spend on your own militia. This isn't the right venue for talking about politics in a meaningful way - it's certainly not the right venue for entirely uninformed discussion of social dynamics.

Oh cool, ye olde microkernel-vs-bloat argument again

rahulsundaram — Tue, 05 Apr 2016 02:37:17 +0000

> the problem comes when you start trying to define the 'basic level of healthcare' for everyone.

Nope. Many many countries have done this for decades successfully.

Oh cool, ye olde microkernel-vs-bloat argument again

dlang — Tue, 05 Apr 2016 02:31:24 +0000

the problem comes when you start trying to define the 'basic level of healthcare' for everyone. Nobody seems willing to leave out any type of care, so it ends up being extremely expensive.

Oh cool, ye olde microkernel-vs-bloat argument again

rahulsundaram — Tue, 05 Apr 2016 02:28:25 +0000

>But I like the perspective about responsibility for the rest of the community.

Even in U.S, everyone is taking on responsibility of the community but only for emergency care that is extremely expensive to fund because people who are too poor to afford regular preventive checkups end up using it in the last minute.

Replacing it with some basic level of healthcare for everyone and letting people who want more pay for extra add-on or replacement coverage is a reasonable approach. Otherwise they should be protesting against tax payer funded emergency care for everyone as well.

Oh cool, ye olde microkernel-vs-bloat argument again

neilbrown — Tue, 05 Apr 2016 02:06:54 +0000

> > You can pay for whatever you like, but that does not discharge your responsibility to your fellow countrymen.

> why is it my responsibility to pay for your medical care as well as my medical care and my family's medical care?

This started me thinking, because I'm fairly sure that here in AUS, when you use private cover it doesn't just top up what the common Medicare provides, but it replaces it (at least to a large extent). How is that fair?

But I like the perspective about responsibility for the rest of the community.

I could look at my Medicare payments not as paying for my (or my family's) medical care, but for the care of everyone else in the country. Everyone except me and mine.
So what about my care? I can choose to rely on the good will of my community, or I can choose to make arrangements myself. Totally my free choice. I can decide that I'm too proud to accept charity (and what a dumb idea that is) or that I want better services than the community can provide (possibly a very rational choice). Or I can decide to rely on the goodness of those around me (to choose a government which wisely provides general health care).

I'm very happy to be supporting the health care of those around me. That is what my Medicare payments provide.

Oh cool, ye olde microkernel-vs-bloat argument again

dlang — Tue, 05 Apr 2016 01:57:16 +0000

so why should I not be able to opt out of paying for the government system if I am paying for my own care?

remember it's "your side" that says that I shouldn't have that option.

Oh cool, ye olde microkernel-vs-bloat argument again

Wol — Tue, 05 Apr 2016 01:55:06 +0000

> why is it my responsibility to pay for your medical care as well as my medical care and my family's medical care?

As above - it's not necessarily your responsibility to PAY for my care, but it IS your responsibility not to INFECT me because you won't pay for your own care.

Cheers,
Wol

Oh cool, ye olde microkernel-vs-bloat argument again

Wol — Tue, 05 Apr 2016 01:52:44 +0000

> > Especially when "opting out" means everyone else must either (a) pay for your critical care when you get sick, or (b) watch you die from something easily treatable but outside your coverage.

> so you completely ignore the possibility that I get the coverage I want and am happy with it?

Unfortunately, there's also the case where you're perfectly happy with your coverage, but other people suffer as a result. What if your family policy doesn't include vaccinating your kids? Then the 5% or so who CAN'T be vaccinated are placed in danger because you have *chosen* not to be vaccinated.

It's a little thing called "Public Health". You may not want to pay for certain cover, and you may be perfectly happy with the consequences, but if those consequences have adverse affects on other people then the government SHOULD step in and tell you "Sorry, but you have *responsibilities* as well as rights".

Cheers,
Wol