On the one hand, I understand - and support - their reasons for making this change. But on the other hand, I find it very distressing to think how much harder it is going to be for independent researchers, working outside of the realm of formal academia, to get over the hump of getting their first submission accepted. The bar was already high for folks who aren't "connected" and now it gets - seemingly - much higher. Probably that price is worth it in the grand scheme of things, but that's small comfort for the folks out there scrambling for an endorsement.
Right now? I spend less than $100 / month on AI services. I have the cheap plan ($20/ month or whatever) for ChatGPT, the $20/month (or whatever) plan for Gemini, a Github CoPilot plan that is, I think, $10/month. Add in a dollar or two here and there for using the OpenAI API (which I mostly don't, preferring instead of self-host open-weights models using Ollama), and a few bucks here and there for experimenting with Azure AI services. This is all in my personal life.
At the $DAYJOB we have a corporate subscription to Github CoPilot, as well as Microsoft CoPilot, and some access to the Azure OpenAI API.
All of that said, as I've gotten more into coding with spec driven development and using coding agents like OpenCode, I'm starting to see more of the value in all of this, and I wouldn't rule out the possibility of upping my spending at some point down the road.
This weekend I've been going through a bunch of stuff with A2A, building little samples and just getting my head around it. Threw together this repo[1] with a bunch of the stuff I'm doing, if anybody else is interested.
Also, watching a bunch of videos and reading docs on OpenClaw. I had thought I'd do an install of it sometime this weekend, but I don't know if I'll get to that at this point or not.
And lastly, messing with Spring AI[2]. I wanted to get a local build of that going so I can dig into the bowels of it and hack on it a bit. So I got that repo cloned and ran a quick build, and now I plan to start exploring the codebase.
Lots, but the big one right now is Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach by Russell & Norvig. I've had an ambition to read this cover-to-cover for a while, so I started it this year, with a goal of finishing by the end of the year.
I don't use one "seriously", or even really know how to use one to be honest. But I did buy one last year, with the intention to learn to use it. Why? Novelty mostly, and just general intellectual curiosity. I haven't really had time to dig into working with it yet though. :-(
I found usage really helps you learn how to WAG (Wild Ass Guess).
It also scares the crap out of me to think about what infinity is: you see your slide manipulate incredible numbers, then you imagine a slide that is twice as big. Or a few feet long.
Not really. OpenJDK is exactly what OpenJDK is, and there are plenty of builds provided by other vendors who have nothing to do with Oracle. All Oracle "owning" it really means is that they basically have unilateral ability to make changes to Java[1], where said changes will be reflected in their official binary releases. And they charge for their releases (and have some auditing / licensing terms which many find off-putting) which is only important if it's really important for you to use an Official Oracle Build for some reason, as opposed to Eclipse Temurin, Amazon Corretto, BellSoft Liberica, Red Hat's build, etc.
Personally I just use the OpenJDK builds provided by my linux distro and never give it a second thought.
[1]: And so far, Oracle haven't shown much, if any, propensity for abusing their control of Java. There's a process and they seem to mostly stick to it.
Oracle might only accept upstream contributions but OpenJDK is GPL2, so anyone can host their fork of OpenJDK with whatever GPL2-licensed patches they like, regardless of the OCA/CLA being signed. Indeed there are enough distributions of OpenJDK that there's a site for picking which is best for you. I can't really speak to how current that information is, or how good it is, but it exists: https://whichjdk.com/
But yes, you might be right to be suspect of Java as a whole if this is how they treat contributors.
It's worth noting that many larger open source projects have contributor agreements to strengthen their rights for redistribution that a standard license might not cover. What if they want to change the license? They don't want to be hamstrung by a million contributions. Moral rights are something you often see. And severability might also be a concern. Some like the OCA are worse than others. The Python one is pretty good because it limits any future relicensing to open source. https://www.python.org/psf/contrib/contrib-form/
I noticed something similar recently. I purchased "The Fast and the Furious" on Prime quite some time ago. Recently I searched for it, and the only entry that shows up shows that I would have to pay to watch it. WTF? So I go into my Video Library and browse to that title, and sure enough it says "You purchased this" and I can watch it.
I assume that in my case, the issue is that certain titles are listed more than once (for whatever bizarre reason) and the particular instance I bought is no longer available. OR, a less charitable take would be that Amazon do this intentionally to try to trick people into paying a second time for something they've already purchased...
Not sure what I believe yet, and not sure if this relates to your issue or not. So take this FWIW.
Terminal? Hard to be sure, but I think there are glimmers of hope that the answer is "no" in the short-term.
Corollary question: should it be? Eg, is "liberal democracy" really the best we can possibly do? My take is that the long-term goal should be a society based on Voluntaryism with no use of force for anything other than self-defense. But if we ever get there, it won't be soon, and in the near-term the collapse of liberal democracy is trending towards the full-on advent of fascism and totalitarianism.
So at least for now, I believe liberal democracy is something worth fighting to protect.
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