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"I'm really clueless about operating system technology -- please select Linux for me."

at LinuxToday. Rusty Foster wrote a first-hand account of the site going back up; funny it wasn't linked to from here.

Check out the original English version from LinuxToday.

This is part of the reason why it is important the OS doesn't get out of the hands of the people.

1. The Federal government should encourage the development of open source software as an alternate path for software development for high end computing.

2. The Federal government should allow open source development efforts to compete on a "level playing field" with proprietary solutions in government procurement of high end computing software. Requests for Proposals (RFPs) from Federal agencies for high end computing software, tools and libraries should include provisions allowing these efforts to be carried out using open source.

3. An analysis of existing open source licensing agreements should be undertaken, and the results should be distributed to all agencies funding high end computing. The analysis should describe characteristics of each license and give specific examples of situations inw hich it may be prefereable to use one type over another. [Emphasis mine] The use of common licensing agreements should be encouraged.

At the same time as the dire warnings of the imminent doom of the internet due to DDOS attacks from compromised Unix machines, MicroSoft-NBC is apparently also sponsoring a "stuffed" poll (whether MSNBC is doing the stuffing or someone else I don't know), according to This story on Linuxtoday.com

Is there anyone but me that finds this to be an amazing coincidence that the Microsoft FUD machines are cranked up to full throttle the weekend after Microsoft ME is released (and is being thoroughly disapproved of according to the various reviews and "will you buy Windows ME?" polls around the net)?

Perhaps some rival news agencies would like to get some mileage out of MSNBC's activities? ...

So? What is your point? Do you agree or disagree?

Also, I think you missed the point of the editorial: RMS has long been an Open Source advocate, from conviction, with astounding results. For that reason he has studied the legal issues surrounding licenses in detail, and because of that he has pointed out the difficulties inherent in KDE's use of the GPL in combination with closed source Qt. Now Qt has gone GPL, adn he says: Ok, fine, great, even, and to forestall future silly legal technicalities, I declare on behalf of the FSF, that all past (technical) violations of the GPL on FSF sources are forgiven, and that the KDE folk can proceed as if they never happened. With our blessing.

The hostile KDE reaction to this completely baffled me. Had they not read the article? Don't they see, RMS has a point where he saw legal problems with their licenses? Don't they see the article said: 'Let's put that behind us now'? Have they lost all reason?

And what replies RMS? Another very calm and dignified response, seeking reconciliation rather than a bare-fisted mud-slinging match. He has stepped over the legal difficulties and taken the fight back to the code, where it belongs. And that is, what prompted the editorial, I'd guess.

Stefan.
It takes a lot of brains to enjoy satire, humor and wit-

Point out where in the editorial he "insults" the KDE team. And I mean, quote the precise words where he insults them.

I'll quote the "forgiveness" bit:

Also, where code was copied from other GPL-covered programs, their copyright holders need to be asked for forgiveness.

This is a very specific statement. It addresses what are *real* violations of the GPL by the KDE team, and applies to those violations in particular.

Also, look at this bit:

To lead the way, the FSF hereby grants this forgiveness for all code that is copyright FSF. More precisely, those who as of September 4, 2000 have used some FSF code in violation of the GPL solely by linking it with Qt, and thus have forfeited the right to use that code under the GPL, will once again have full GPL permissions to use that code upon switching to a GPL-covered version of Qt.

He grants forgiveness, and later asks others to do so. But now look at how the KDE editorial represents this:

According to Stallman, because we once linked that code to a library not compatible with the GPL, we now have to beg forgiveness from the copyright holders of that code or we will forever be in violation.

Note how they introduce emotional language, "beg", which appears nowhere in the original RMS editorial. And anyway, RMS's argument, which they just flat out claim is "absurd", is far from being so. If they are still using copied GPL code from other sources which they linked to a QPLed Qt, they long since lost rights to distribute that code.

The "simple solution" they claim to this is as follows:

The "solution" to this is simple: we remove the "tainted" code from kmidi and kghostview, release a "pure" version of each, then re-add those files. Since adding non-tainted code is fine, we would be cleared.

Now this is absurd. Totally. They violated GPL on that code, thus, their right to distribute it is revoked. Period. They can't re-add those files, since they don't have permission to do so.

This situation is simple: the KDE developers are a bunch of assholes. They base their GUI on proprietary code, yet want to market it as Free Software. They link GPL code to incompatibly licensed libraries, yet they refuse to acknowledge that this is a problem. RMS and Debian ask them repeatedly to make a trivial official statement to explicitly clarify their permission to link their code to QPL code, yet they refuse to make this simple statement, and react with emotional attacks. Troll Tech, very graciously on their part, has to first release Qt under a free license, and then under GPL, in order to clean up the mess the KDE team creates. RMS reacts to the GPLing by clearly saying that, as far as he is concerned, the problems are over, but that they should clarify that they have permission to use any third party GPL code they use. Yet they react with an emotional attack.

All throughout, there were many specific things the KDE folks were asked to do, some of them simple, but they have always reacted with emotional attacks that misrepresent the other side and deny the obvious. I say fuck them. They certainly have no respect for free software and the free software community.

According to this Linux Today story/press release, "Network ICE is disclosing the source code to a new e-mail sniffing program called 'Altivore.' This software provides a potential alternative to ISPs who do not want to install the FBI's secretive black-box known as 'Carnivore.'" The press release is at NewsAlert, and the source is here.

Can't stop snickering... :-)

According to this Linux Today story/press release, "Network ICE is disclosing the source code to a new e-mail sniffing program called 'Altivore.' This software provides a potential alternative to ISPs who do not want to install the FBI's secretive black-box known as 'Carnivore.'" The press release is at NewsAlert, and the source is here.

Can't stop snickering... :-)

I'm thus surprised that this story appears now.

Are you sure about that?

If you check out the link above, you'll see they
are moving to a java-like (but with different TLA's) engine to work around the Win32-Win64 issues!

Gotta love it!

Check out this link.

I'm not advocating it, but if you're interested in building your own, here is an article on How to Build Your Own 1U Rack Mount Server and Save a Bundle from an old slashdot article. It may prove to be a useful resource.

Actually, I forget where the article is offhand (you can probably find it by doing a search on LinuxToday), but according an article reviewing the beta of Win ME, they stated that the only boot disk you can make is one of their rescue disks. The /s switch in format no longer works, and I don't believe there's a "Copy system files" option in the GUI format command.

This is not good, seeing as I can't see newbies trying to flash a BIOS knowing which files to delete off the boot disk to make room for the BIOS image. On the other hand, some recent motherboards (my Epox mobo being one them) do allow you to flash the BIOS via a command option in the CMOS setup...

Just my $.02...

There was a reference to this anti-Moody rant; it seems that ol' Fred has had a reputation as a Microsoft shill for some time now.

It was also pointed out that Moody seems to have arrived at his Linux bug-counts by adding together the Red Hat and Linux Aggregate counts -- meaning that Red Hat bugs were counted twice. Counted correctly, NT has more Bugtraq entries than Linux.

Does that make NT the worst OS of all time?

He seems to be adding the Redhat number to the LINUX (all) number to get his "122" figure. That means the Redhat bugs are being counted twice.

All this is well-covered over on LinuxToday, btw.

Check out the Linux Today dialogues between RMS and Tony Stanco here. Also featured here at Slashdot but I'm too lazy to find it right now. I think Stanco's arguments can be applied here as well.

The are two ways to become rich. One way is to control tangible property like real estate, rail ways, etc -- the means of production in the classical sense. The other means is to control the expression of your ideas. Eliminating IP law leaves you with the former only.

Economically, with the means of production so completely controlled by the rich, there is little left for the poor. The poor is then left with their intellectual prowess. They must either work for the rich (use their skills) thereby ensuring the rich get richer or they may attempt to sell their ideas thereby obtaining a larger share of the economic pie or even becoming rich themselves. Why limit their options because it inconveniences a few?

But I think there's more to it than just property and control. At the most basic level, humans have a tendency to think in the terms "mine" and "yours." "My" ideas are what makes me "me" and sets me apart from "your" ideas which make you "you". To say that "my" ideas are not "mine" is to say that I am not an individual. This idea of ownership is why copyright and patents are acceptable to people today. And were acceptable to people in the past.

So, people may give away the expression of their ideas. But it is theirs to give. If they attach terms that you must abide by to gain access to the work, and if you find those terms acceptable, then what harm is done?

In addition, support for more powerful hardware is provided in the new kernel which now supports 64 gigabytes of RAM on Intel hardware, up to 16 ethernet cards, 10 IDE controllers, multiple IO-APICs, and other pointless abuses of good hardware. The 2 gigabyte file size restriction has also been lifted.

It seems that anyone terribly interested in running a large database on a Linux platform may wish to wait for the 2.4 kernel to arrive, as it adds support for raw devices, file sizes over 2G, tons of additional ram... It generally scales better for this type of work. Check out this link for a listing of the new stuff.

Last year, ESR blasted AOL over attempting to close up the AIM protocol after it had oppened it. Look here.

NOTE: I put this link in a comment in another thread, but it might be of more general interest.

Yes, AOL did submit an Open IM Design to IETF, but it just gives a high level discussion of what an IM protocol might be like; it doesn't say anything about how the AIM protocol currently works.

And according to this article by ESR, AOL released the AIM protocol, only to make changes to it once Microsoft began using it, in order to lock Microsoft out. So it doesn't seem like AOL really wants to be open with regards to IM.

For a full discussion of AOL vs. the rest of the world (with regards to AIM), see this article.

http://slashdot .org/article.pl?sid=00/04/27/0858200&mode=thread
http://linuxtoday.com/stories/17660.html
http://www.geeknews.org/news/fe b00/newsitem090.html
http://www.palmstation.com/ view_article.py?article=1786
http://www.pdabuzz.com/Features/Yopy.html
http://slashdot .org/article.pl?sid=00/02/27/1027237&mode=thread
http://www.pcworld.com /pcwtoday/article/0,1510,15486,00.html
http://www.ch ip.de/PC2D/PC2DB/PC2DBA/pc2dba.htm?id=323&ressort= 20 (German)
http://www.twomobile.com/new_032200_y opy.html (obviously they didn't credit the source of the pictures and video footage!)
http://ore illy.linux.com/pub/a/network/2000/05/05/magazine/L inuxPDA.html
http://www.handheldmed.com/code/news /yopi1.htm
http://www.gnn.de/0005/7603.html (German)
http://www.p cwelt.de/content/news/newprodukte/2000/05/xn090500 003.html (German)

http://www.sem.samsung.co.kr/ eng/product/digital/pda/
http://www.gmate.co.kr

http://www.palmtopmagazin.de/board/linux Discussion about Linux-PDAs (German)
http://www.palmtopmagazin.de/news/linux Linux-PDA news (German)
http://www.theyopy.de German Yopy fan site
http://www.handhelds.org Linux-Development for Compaq iPaq
http://www.yopy.org Another Yopy fan site

Under cross-examination by Marty Garbus, Shamos the phony expert, admitted he could not have conducted his test for MPAA without the skill and help of real expert, Eric Burns [a student at CMU]. As a result Burns is now to become a witness to tell what he actually did to get the DivX, get it decoded synchronized and playable. Shamos looked swell while being examined by Proskauer and got blown away by Garbus. Even the judge took a few whacks, and approved Frank Stevenson and Eric Burns as witnesses over Proskauer's objections. ... An attempt is to be made to bring him over to the angel side.

Schumann's affidavit and testimony that DeCSS was created to be a tool of piracy was severely undermined on cross-examination by EFF's defense team when asked about a report he submitted to the MPAA concluding that members of the Livid mailing list (where DeCSS was published) were attempting to build a Linux DVD player.

"Do you know of any DVD that has been sold anywhere in the world that has been decrypted with DeCSS?" asked Martin Garbus.

"Not with absolute certainty, no," Schumann replied.

He also said that he didn't know of anyone who distributed a DVD online that had been decrypted with DeCSS.

As Garbus kept pressing, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan seemed to become irritated.

LinuxToday is good for (mostly) Linux news.

There is a summary of the article on Linuxtoday.com.

--

Sorry, this is off topic (I got to it via an article mentioned in the story), but:

Windows User Rant (and quote here:)

"Aahh, see you cannot compare Win2k and Linux because they do not have the same drivers, one OS might perform better on some hardware, and the results would never be consistent. So you linux freaks stop trying to prove linux is better. Even if Windows has license cost its for a reason, its made by a commercial company (oh you've never heard of it? I'm sorry then) and they need to make money to make more software & profit. Besides Windows is done by professional coders, some of Linux is done by hobby-programmers. If you want to argue about the internals of Windows give me a ring at my ICQ # at 31546029. I've had enough of this Linux crap, stupid people trying to force their choices on Windows users."

This diatribe should show that immaturity is one thing the Linux community definately does NOT have a monopoly on. Why do the press of all sorts mention the rudeness of Linux advocates, yet fail to do the same for Windows advocates? This is hardly unusual. Any discussion on zd-net or elsewhere features similar mindless rants, yet they are ignored.

Perhaps the next time some 'journalist' mentions how Linux advocates act, they could merely be sent the URL and quote of something like the above to prove that it works both ways. At the same time send some of the essays written by ESR, Linus, Alan Cox, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc to show that there an equally large (if not greater) number of intelligent, rational, well-meaning Linux advocates.

And if that doesn't work, we could just use this guy's ICQ number, find out what his 'puter's IP is, and crack away>;)

Since, when we at slashdot ask for an "unbiased, Non-FUD benchmark" what we really want is something that gives the versimilitude in Linux superiority. Eh, well, here are some links anyway. Take what you want.

First off, some general info (not a benchmark, so it actually contains Truth!)

It may be slightly out of date now that w2k is out, but unix-vs-nt has what appears to be relatively honest benchmarks.
Likewise, PC Week did a review last year shortly after the Mindcraft one

Not a benchmark either, but article on LinuxToday about Linux in the Enterprise.

This whole bench test is pretty useless. Ziff wanted an "application" benchmark that was cross-platform and didn't rely on applications. What they actually built was so content-free that it simply tests network and OS performance as far as the TCP/IP stack.

Not surprisingly, they found that the Win TCP stack is quicker than the (known to be single-threaded) Linux stack. QEFD.

I'd like to see better benchmarks, but I'd much rather see something for simple Corba vs. Corba, or Corba vs DCOM. SOAP (the Apache approach of deployable handlers), vs. SOAP (Servlets) vs. SOAP (Microsft's SOAP-on-a-ROPE) would be even more interesting. We're doing something along those lines ourselves - maybe it will be publically publishable.

To get the alternative "Useless benchmark shows Linux to be faster than Windows" story go here.

The filesize limit difference does not matter because maximum filesize in SPECweb99 is 900KB. Ie. both IIS and TUX cache all files.

backlog limit does not make a difference, because neither IIS nor TUX hit the backlog limit.

IIS is not using a mirrored disk for logging, where do you take that from?

The other questions are answered here.

obDisclaimer: I don't represent internet.com or LinuxToday. Anyone who says I tried is full of it.

I post to LinuxToday on a daily basis (my user name is "mhall"), and I write for LinuxPlanet (you can also l ook at my article history. My status in both relationships is that of a freelancer ("independent contractor").

There is a policy against announcing new site launches. I don't know when it was enacted because I'm fairly new to LinuxToday. I can say, however, that we routinely reject new site announcements. If one gets posted, it was a mistake.

There's another side of the coin, though, and one which the person posting the initial question could have followed: part of the LinuxToday "family" is the site LinuxPR, which allows anyone with a Linux-related business or site to join at no cost.

By signing up for LinuxPR, anyone posting a Linux-related press release (new product announcement, conference, or, most important to this case, site launch) gets their press release posted not only on the main page of LinuxPR, but on the front page of LinuxToday. Press releases are posted on a frequent basis as we're able. My own personal habit is to look in on the press releases several times an hour while I'm posting stories. I even take the step of correcting bad URL's and cleaning up some of the more egregious grammar problems.

Second, sites doing more than just announcing their existence are always welcome to use the LinuxToday contribute form.

Spend a few minutes looking at LinuxToday, please. Where do the stories come from? They come from other sites. How much of each story do we carry before pointing the reader to the rest of it? Seldom more than three or four paragraphs. When we have a reciprocal agreement with an organization like VNUNet or when the story is run by another internet.com site that isn't in the Linux channel we'll run the whole thing (which, when you think about it, is actually limiting the number of banners the internet.com site is going to move.) If anything, LinuxToday provides a means by which some smaller Linux-related sites can get more traffic than they might have before we thoughtfully provided a link to their story along with a few paragraphs of "teaser" to get the reader's curiosity up.

If LinuxToday were following an "anti-other-Linux-sites" policy, it would soon dry up and blow away. The strength of the site is the near-constant flow of news from around (and outside) the Linux community.

Finally, (and because this is the part most people will feel the most comfortable ignoring, because I'm talking about my client):

Despite several months of working on LinuxToday, I have never felt particularly "watched over" by internet.com. The other editors on the site and its primary programmer are all Linux enthusiasts who are interested in providing a good service to the Linux community. I've never knowingly withheld a story for any reason other than the fact we've already covered it ad nauseum or that it should be submitted as a press release because it's nothing more than an attempt to sell something (including eyeballs).

When I first threw in my lot with LinuxToday and LinuxPlanet, I had some concerns about the nature of the entity that owned them. My own roots in Linux go back over four years, and I've been a UNIX enthusiast for more than twice that time. I've contributed documentation to a major open free software product under the copyleft. I love Linux, and I love the community surrounding it. I get up each day at 6 a.m. to start posting on LinuxToday, and my thoughts are not to how well the money's flowing that day, but how much information is being moved to readers. When I set fingers to keyboard for a story on LinuxPlanet, it isn't because I'm thrilled at the prospect of creating revenue, it's because I hope I can help people make decisions, or inform them in some way. The people I work with (who are in a more durable relationship with internet.com than I) have shown the same instincts and concern for the Linux community.

There may be a site worthy of paranoia and suspicion, but I don't think LinuxToday is it.

Though it should not require reiteration, I'll note once more that I don't speak for any of the entities mentioned in this post besides myself. I'm just a freelancer.

Kind regards,

Michael
------------
Michael Hall
Charlottesville, Virginia

obDisclaimer: I don't represent internet.com or LinuxToday. Anyone who says I tried is full of it.

I post to LinuxToday on a daily basis (my user name is "mhall"), and I write for LinuxPlanet (you can also l ook at my article history. My status in both relationships is that of a freelancer ("independent contractor").

There is a policy against announcing new site launches. I don't know when it was enacted because I'm fairly new to LinuxToday. I can say, however, that we routinely reject new site announcements. If one gets posted, it was a mistake.

There's another side of the coin, though, and one which the person posting the initial question could have followed: part of the LinuxToday "family" is the site LinuxPR, which allows anyone with a Linux-related business or site to join at no cost.

By signing up for LinuxPR, anyone posting a Linux-related press release (new product announcement, conference, or, most important to this case, site launch) gets their press release posted not only on the main page of LinuxPR, but on the front page of LinuxToday. Press releases are posted on a frequent basis as we're able. My own personal habit is to look in on the press releases several times an hour while I'm posting stories. I even take the step of correcting bad URL's and cleaning up some of the more egregious grammar problems.

Second, sites doing more than just announcing their existence are always welcome to use the LinuxToday contribute form.

Spend a few minutes looking at LinuxToday, please. Where do the stories come from? They come from other sites. How much of each story do we carry before pointing the reader to the rest of it? Seldom more than three or four paragraphs. When we have a reciprocal agreement with an organization like VNUNet or when the story is run by another internet.com site that isn't in the Linux channel we'll run the whole thing (which, when you think about it, is actually limiting the number of banners the internet.com site is going to move.) If anything, LinuxToday provides a means by which some smaller Linux-related sites can get more traffic than they might have before we thoughtfully provided a link to their story along with a few paragraphs of "teaser" to get the reader's curiosity up.

If LinuxToday were following an "anti-other-Linux-sites" policy, it would soon dry up and blow away. The strength of the site is the near-constant flow of news from around (and outside) the Linux community.

Finally, (and because this is the part most people will feel the most comfortable ignoring, because I'm talking about my client):

Despite several months of working on LinuxToday, I have never felt particularly "watched over" by internet.com. The other editors on the site and its primary programmer are all Linux enthusiasts who are interested in providing a good service to the Linux community. I've never knowingly withheld a story for any reason other than the fact we've already covered it ad nauseum or that it should be submitted as a press release because it's nothing more than an attempt to sell something (including eyeballs).

When I first threw in my lot with LinuxToday and LinuxPlanet, I had some concerns about the nature of the entity that owned them. My own roots in Linux go back over four years, and I've been a UNIX enthusiast for more than twice that time. I've contributed documentation to a major open free software product under the copyleft. I love Linux, and I love the community surrounding it. I get up each day at 6 a.m. to start posting on LinuxToday, and my thoughts are not to how well the money's flowing that day, but how much information is being moved to readers. When I set fingers to keyboard for a story on LinuxPlanet, it isn't because I'm thrilled at the prospect of creating revenue, it's because I hope I can help people make decisions, or inform them in some way. The people I work with (who are in a more durable relationship with internet.com than I) have shown the same instincts and concern for the Linux community.

There may be a site worthy of paranoia and suspicion, but I don't think LinuxToday is it.

Though it should not require reiteration, I'll note once more that I don't speak for any of the entities mentioned in this post besides myself. I'm just a freelancer.

Kind regards,

Michael
------------
Michael Hall
Charlottesville, Virginia

What's more interesting to me is seeing a big software comapny like Progress, who has made enterprise class databse systems for years, adopt MySQL as its "Open Source" databse product rather than release its own existing tools as Open Source.

In case you missed it the press release I am refering to is at LinuxToday and talks about Progress software's new company NuSphere.

The company I work for has been a Progress shop for years, it would sure be nice to see MySQL be more compatible with many of our old databases. It would be even better if through this relationship Progress will support other open source endevauors (most notably PHP).

-MS2k

I also think it's possible that anyone with a good enough grasp of the latest kernel and how it works is more than likely writing code rather than writing docs.

I would really like to see a documentation project similar to TLK that is kept as up-to-date as possible. Unfortunately the rate of change of the kernel, the immense amount of traffic of the lists and the years of experience required to understand and interpret the latest changes, rules out most people. Those it doesn't seem to be writing code :)

I would happy to be corrected by someone like Joe Pranevich for example...

Not to be confused with 2.2.2pre4, the "Almost-valentines day", aka "horny greased weasel", aka "Presidents Day" release.

you might want to check joe pranevich's article on 2.4. its called "Wonderful world of Linux 2.4" and you can find it http://linuxtod ay.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2000-05-13-003-04-NW-L F-KN.

i believe that udf support is added to 2.4. i dont believe that any journaling system (xfs/jfs/ext3/reiserfs) will make it into 2.4 but you can alway patch you kernel with reiserFS patch and get (imo) stable and fast journaling system. :)

Miguel: "...but I don't think their [BSD] tools have evolved like they should have evolved. Their kernel is great, but their tools, their userland, is just ancient. It needs some updating (the emphasis is mine). And, doing a Red Hat port, you'll hate me here, but the Red Hat port to the BSD kernel, looks like a good idea. You get some nice features from the kernel, and it'd be nice if you could just switch the application and run on the kernel is more interesting to you. Actually, you can do that. If the library is the same, and if the application is going to do any system calls, they just call the library, you can actually have binaries from both the BSD kernel and the Linux kernel."

And here is Theo's rebuttal shamelessly ripped from The o's Response

Miguel is wrong. I never find core files for the stock OpenBSD binaries. When bash.core stops being found, perhaps he can make some claims. When they stop having security holes, perhaps they can start to claim that their userland tools are non-ancient. When they stop calling mktemp(), inet_addr(), and strcpy, then perhaps they can start to claim something like that. Their source code is unmaintained.

Maybe short-sighted wasn't a good description for Miguel, ignorant would have been perfect. Try not to worship people from now on.

Since none of the KDE core developers have been contacted, I am sorry to say I think Rivyn jumped the gun here. While Miguel may have talked to Rikkus - he's not a primary KParts developer. As a matter of fact, as far as I can tell no KParts developer or maintainer was spoken to at all. Thus this is misleading at best. Not that it wouldn't be good to interoperate, but no KDE core developer or KParts developer has been contacted so don't get too excited. A lot of KDE developers have serious issues with Bonobo such as overhead, and nothing has been discussed at all with them.

As I read from comments on linuxtoday, this seems to be a fake :(, but anyway, sometimes someone has to put a rumor to start things ...

• eWeek: FCC wants more from AOL about work on IM standard
  
• ZDNet: Berst Alert: FTC to AOL: IM Watching You
  
• The Standard: AOL Will Offer IM-Sharing Plan

Weblogs are a cool concept, but ultimately lead to fragmentation -- content, eyeballs, authors, and participants are spread among many distinct islands.

One of the more interesting ideas to emerge from the Advogato / Kuro5hin axis is the concept of syndication. This would cover content, already common -- Slashdot and LinuxToday are essentially content syndication sites, and The Register officially sanctions linking. But syndication could also include a distributed user directory, and potentially (flame on) attributes such as karma or other metrics of merit from various sites.

I see a mix of several models coallescing into the final "product":

• From Slashdot and Blockstackers -- Everything -- a hyperlinked, persistant, discussion/directory. Somewhat like Wiki.
• From Kuro5hin, a well-de signed collaborative moderating system
• From Advogato, the idea of a trust metric is useful, but not sufficient.
• From the IWETHEY EZBoard, active content promotion. Active topics float up in the discussion queue. It's a bit different from a typical weblog, but tends to promote issues of interest and bury (but not kill) those which aren't generating much traffic.
• From LinuxWorld, multiple forum interfaces -- forums can be web, Usenet, or e-mail based.

Still to be worked out are issues of story selection. Various models work -- Slashdot and IWETHEY fall at two extremes, with a dedicated editorial staff on the one hand, and a number of free-form "open forums" in which any topic may be posted and discussed. Kuro5hin's still working out the kinks, though a number of suggestions have been proposed.

The point is that high-quality (and low quality) content are created all over the Net. Mindless Link Propogation (TM) (MLP) is a useful way of aggregating it to key sites. Mindful link propogation might be even better.

What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand?
Scope out Kuro5hin

Before you post something, go and search linuxtoday and lwn.net/daily for it. And if it was at either one two weeks ago maybe you shouldn't post it...
~luge(I come to /. for fresh news... this is about as stale as I've ever seen...)

" A broken ASF file not accepted by the Microsoft parser would be lost; the patent would prevent anyone from writing a byte-level tool to recover the ASF file. A third-party Linux player wouldn't be legal, since there would be no way to legally extract the file data, even if third-party video and audio decoders were available. Attempting to transcode a compressed ASF to another format would be impossible with any Microsoft-licensed tools, even if you have the permission of the copyright owner, or even if you are the copyright owner, because the Windows Media Format SDK license requires programs to actively block this action. For instance, Microsoft compelled Nullsoft to disable DSP plugin support in WinAmp with Windows Media Audio content because the DSP interface could be used to transcode, even though DSP plugins normally just process the audio."

It would seem that the wonderful (patented) file format MS ASF can contain script/executables of some kind. See this article in Linux Today.

> I read a Gartner release last week and couldnt believe the predictions they were making, very much out of touch.

I follow Linux Today pretty closely, and see lots of Gartner jokes^H^H^H^H^H reports quoted there. I have come to the conclusion that they always "predict" what actually happened over the past 12 months. It's a fairly safe way out, since the only time it makes them look too far off is when things are changing very rapidly. Unfortunately for them, the Linux uinverse has been changing very rapidly lately, so it gives Gartner a reputation of complete cluelessness among Linuxers.

> The only way you can still be employable into later life is to specialise in something that will always require consultants, ie. Database design... Databases will never go away.

Perhaps, though that could prove to be disastrous if someone invented a new db technology that obsoleted everything you know. Unlikely, but still a risk to consider. I prefer generality, and I honestly think it's more valuable to companies (at least for the majority of their employees), though I'm not sure many interviewers would agree with me.

--

Richard Stallman has his own views on what should happen to Microsoft, which seem a lot more reasonable than simply splitting up the company.

What needs to be done is to get beyond the "We must *hurt* Microsoft" mentality into the "How will doing this to Microsoft effect the industry in the long-term?" mentality. Splitting the company up just seems like an appealing way of hurting them. It doesn't seem like it is doing anything constructive.

Splitting seems like changing one successful company with popular products into three.

Sorry I already debunked this virus when the details were posted to Linux Today. You can read my post at http://linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2000-05 -12-003-06-SC.

If you don't want to click the link, the summary is this virus is stopped by firewalls. It would be dead in the water in the modern internet.

Sorry I already debunked this virus when the details were posted to Linux Today. You can read my post at 0 5-12-003-06-SC</a>.

If you don't want to click the link, the summary is this virus is stopped by firewalls. It would be dead in the water in the modern internet.