Slashdot Mirror

TLDs are pointless.

Proof:

http://slashdot.com/
http://www.google.net/
http://www.microsoft.net/
http://www.craigslist.com/

All of those are paid for by their respective owners, and they redirect or just display the content of the "real" TLD.

Country codes would be nice, its annoying to go to a .com and find I'm in the UK, and I'm not going to order from them.

If I want to go to a company's website, I don't type www.barnes and noble.net, I ask google for it. Also, with the typosquatting, and whatnot, typing urls is simply unsafe. I do use the URL's history. s completes to slashdot, and whatnot. Just in case you need rock hard erections go to http://www.slashdot.net/

I can think of a few good reasons for compressing an image of text, including without limitation the following:

• Screenshots, not all of which have the flat colors on which PNG does so well.
• Text in any of several writing systems for which the publisher of a hideously popular proprietary operating system refuses to add support.

[Microsoft] are beating the [Game]cube by a huge amount in North America and Europe.

Yeah, and the Nintendo Game Boy Advance is outselling Microsoft's handheld gaming platform, partly because Microsoft's platform 1. is too expensive per unit and 2. has controls that are ill-suited to action gaming.

Microsoft needs an Xboy. Badly.

> Thats because Coke is not open source. Isn't the ability to modify an inherent feature in open source software ?

This is Slashdot. We are using Linux, not Windows, and we are drinking OpenCola, not Coke. Did I miss a memo or something? Is OSS not "elite" now, or what?

The FSF "Everything must work with the GPL or else" is a very... Seatle Corporation perspective.

Which Seattle corporation? This one, or the one down the street?

For all practical purposes ".NET" is basically the name that Microsoft is now associating with every latest version of most of its products, so it means nothing. (Yes, there is a very nice JVM ripoff in there somewhere...)

This JVM-inspired environment is called .NET Framework. Look for the word "Framework" in Microsoft .NET product literature to find references to what most Slashdot users seem to associate with ".NET".

C# fails

Some critics have described the Java language as "C++ done right". The C# language is Microsoft's re-hash of the Java language. Now if you stick two ++'s on top of each other, you get something that looks like a hash sign; thus, (C++)++ is C#.

There are, however, irrevocable internet currencies out there (I sell one, actually)

Imagine a digital rights management infrastructure that requires you to pay per view using a metal as currency. Not just any metal, a precious metal.

That's e-Palladium.

Office office suite

"Microsoft Office(tm) application suite" sounds better.

Media Player media player (or is that Windows Media media player these days?)

Microsoft products are often named including a generic term, and "Microsoft" or "Windows" is the trademark. Thus, the WMA player is called "Windows(tm) Media Player (generic)", and the database management system is "Microsoft(tm) SQL Server (generic)". And the OS itself is the "Windows operating system" or "Windows environment", which contains a ".NET framework".

OpenOffice office suite

You need only one generic term: "StarOffice(TM) software"; "OpenOffice.org project".

America On Line online service, AOL Instant Messenger instant messenger

"America Online service"; "AOL Instant Messenger service and software"

Unix operating system

Close enough to the official line.

BSD unix software distribution (for extra fun, spell out what BSD stands for), Solaris unix, Gnu's Not Unix unix

Better: "BSD operating system family", "Solaris operating environment", "GNU system", "GNU/Linux operating system", etc.

Laser Jet laser printer, DeskJet inkjet printer

You're more likely to find those in HP literature as "LaserJet printer" or "DeskJet printer".

That way lies madness.

That way lies trademark law. You need only one generic term, not the monstrosities that you exaggerated.

Though an argument can probably be made that the Linux trademark has not been protected by its holder in that regard, since he actually encourages people to use the term to refer to more than just the kernel, but that is another kettle of fish.

The LINUX® mark covers "computer operating system software to facilitate computer use and operation".

"tissue" has a meaning very different from anything Kleenex makes

OK, "Kleenex facial tissue".

I've seen a Barbie doll commercial where the word "doll" was awkwardly dubbed in, presumably after Mattel legal complained.

Even without trademark law, what's better: to be pedantically correct, or to be understood?

[Windoids are] possible with any window manager that supports either MWM hints, or properly supports the _NET spec.

I thought only Microsoft Windows supported the .NET spec. What am I thinking of?

Saying "Apple sells hardware, not software" is just false, because they charge over $100 for the latest OS and $50 for AppleWorks

Apple's primary competition charges $300 for the latest desktop OS (Windows XP Professional) and $400 for its office suite. At those prices, Apple is practically giving them away, no?

[With a shell account,] you wouldn't need to [haul big files] very often - you do most of your work in your shell account on the remote box, right?

Much of my current work involves image editing, audio editing, and development of interactive graphical simulations. Do those work well over SSH?

The thought process is that since you have so little bandwidth and probably less power, disk space, memory, etc. at home that there's not much point in using that computer as anything but a glass terminal, and doing interesting things only on the remote system.

I'm still unclear on some of the uses of a shell account. Let's cross-check your thought process against your list of applications:

You can run servers, read mail, send mail, transfer files around, develop software, and so on.

Not according to the AUPs of most of the free shell providers I've seen. (Free shell providers are the subject of this Slashdot article.)

You can run servers, read mail, send mail, transfer files around, develop software, and so on.

Which is limited by the speed of the eyeballs and fingers. How is reading mail over SSH any better than reading mail over SSL'd IMAP? And unless you run a mailing list, why would sending mail need a lot of server bandwidth?

You can run servers, read mail, send mail, transfer files around, develop software, and so on.

To what? To other people's shell accounts? Transferring big .jpg files using a shell account doesn't get them to my screen any faster.

You can run servers, read mail, send mail, transfer files around, develop software, and so on.

I assume you're just talking about logging into a remote machine to maintain a CVS repository such as on OSDN's own service. Otherwise, doesn't a fellow who develops software want a fast connection from the box where the application runs to the box where the application's display runs? That's likely to be a lot faster on localhost than on dial-up. In addition, using a programmer's text editor such as GNU Emacs or Vim over a network connection with a 200+ ms ping is a pain in the donkey.

The shell account is the network pc taken one step further, and is effective even with fairly slow networks.

Unless you want to run anything that's image or audio based and interactive. Take too much intelligence off the client, and you run the risk of having the cumulative effects of long-haul latency (speed of light across a big country such as the United States) and last-mile latency (slow dial-up connection) ruin the interactive experience. Has X11 been optimized to run efficiently over 48 kbps down, 24 kbps up?

Still, if you didn't think thin client computing was a good idea, you probably don't find shell accounts useful either.

Makers of modern network computers recognize that thin client does not mean as thin as a teletype machine's paper. They try to achieve a compromise between the shell account setup (all intelligence on the shell server; client is just a terminal or X server) and the PC setup (all intelligence on the client; only data is shared across the network) by using applets compiled to a cross-platform bytecode and run across the network. For more about this approach, look at Java(tm) technology or its competition.

Is the bug likely to generate fewer sales or not?

If such a bug causes loss of data or compromise of private information, and the story hits Com.com or one of the other tech news sites, and the product does not have a monopoly in the product space, you bet the IT people will do their best to avoid such a product for new installations.

C++ can be ported to many platforms. You just make up a virtual platform, write a VM for it, then port a C++ compiler to emit VM code.

Microsoft did this. It's called Managed C++, part of Microsoft .NET.

a well written C program can be as portible as Java.

Not if you want to use advanced OS features such as sockets or a GUI and the most common workstation operating system on the most common consumer workstation doesn't support POSIX well, let alone X11. Or are you talking about emulating POSIX on a winbox (that is, the opposite of WINE)?

Java code is not native

Bull. GCJ can compile Java language source code to a native binary using the same code generator G++ uses. Granted, you do lose a bit of performance to the GC thread.

Awesome, so the software also let's me carry my PC in my pocket

If somebody ports the emulator to Pocket PC, that's correct. You can (hire somebody to) port one of the Free console emulators to Windows CE, and then you can take it with you.

I meant the games [for calculators]. If you go to an electronics store and see a rack of calculator games next to gameboy games, then it's direct competition.

Dozens of games come on the CD that comes with the TI-GRAPH LINK cable, and dozens more are available on the Internet. I find it difficult not to infer that you and others in this thread believe that only proprietary commercial software can compete directly with proprietary commercial software.

We banned Gameboy's and Cybiko's from the classroom area, even between classes, but did not notice an upswing of kids playing games on their calculators.

We banned Napster's and Scour's from the internet area, even for exchanging authorized live recordings, but did not notice an immediate upswing of Internet users pirating music on KaZaA. In other words, it takes a while for an alternative to catch on. Besides, you've probably never seen the calculator gaming epidemic at FWCS high schools. The kids in study hall have had LAN parties on their calculators.

So what we have here is an individual claiming his rights to a .com(mercial) address which he himself claims not to be using commercially ? Shouldn't a commercial company like Unicom have the rights to the Unicom.com address, rather that an individual exploiting the weak control of .com addresses? As far as I'm concerned, he is a squatter in some sense. Or should we change the meaning of .com to .common ?

A squatter, as has been pointed out, is one who takes the name of a company in hopes to sell it. Obviously, in this case, the term does not, in any streach of the imagination, apply.

The problem with .com is not the fault of Chip Rosenthal, but rather the management of domain names. An interesting example is Microsoft. Go to either http://www.microsoft.com or http://www.microsoft.net. Both result in the same site, both are commercial sites, but one is .net.

Unicom.com also can justify being a .com in that it is a service to the commercial community. I came across it while seeking information on mailing lists (granted, by the time I ran across it, it was slashdotted, and I can't see the article).

As to Unicom having a right to the domain, there is no justification for that. They waited all this time to set up a website, they made no attempt to take care of this facet of their interests, and in no way affected Rosenthal's decision to register the address.

I'm also rather disgusted by the reasoning behind the Squatter rulings. The issue is not that they tried to profit from the URL, but copyright/trademark infringment. Take for instance AltaVista.com. It was registered before the search engine, the owner had legal claim to it, yet he sold it. This is no different from companies buying a valuable piece of real estate they have no intention of developing. They take the risk and expense on themselves, and profit if it pays off.

SourceForge (not SourceForge.net) is a collaborative software development platform.

SourceForge.net is a service provided freely to Open Source software development projects.

The new name SourceForge.net, and the logo with an enlarged dot and a "net" bigger in point size than the "FORGE", remind me too much of Microsoft .NET. Are you porting it to Mono or something? I would have called the code SourceForge Engine and the site SourceForge Projects in keeping with the general policy of following trademarks with a generic noun.

I was curious about this too. Aparently .NET refers to Microsoft.net... whose welcome screen reads:

From what I gather -("new offerings (that will)deliver the reliability, performance, scalability, and manageability required for enterprise solutions") MS is planning on co-branding Corel Linux... how else can they get such features into an enterprise server? "Microsoft's .NET Enterprise Servers provide the fastest way to integrate, manage, and Web-enable your enterprise business. Find out how these new offerings deliver the reliability, performance, scalability, and manageability required for enterprise solutions."

And there are other days when I think it's only a matter of time before the domain squatting starts to wind down as more gTLDs are opened up

NOT. Witness Google.net and Google.org . Microsoft.com is the same site as Microsoft..net . Squatters will squat on every available TLD. Even Slashdot.org has its own .com.

And there are other days when I think it's only a matter of time before the domain squatting starts to wind down as more gTLDs are opened up

NOT. Witness Google.net and Google.org . Microsoft.com is the same site as Microsoft..net . Squatters will squat on every available TLD. Even Slashdot.org has its own .com.

<laugh>While they claim to have invented XML</laugh> .. their white paper seems to be a description of their future bastardization plans. "..The loosely coupled XML-based Microsoft .NET programming model introduces the concept of creating XML-based Web Services.." - methinks i've seen too many other loosely coupled M$ standard "interpretations" (Unicode, Dynamic DNS, Java)

Seems more to me that M$ will do for the internet what NetBios did for networking .. create bad substandards that generate a lot of noise, confusion, and traffic - and then hopefully everybody forgets about them .. (if we all ignore them long enough will they ever go away?)

.je
"microsoft.net .. now I can watch my machine helplessly die from anywhere in the world .."

Well it is pretty clear in the Bill Gates speach on the new microsoft.net website what they have in mind (Pay attention to minute 21:30 seconds of the speech)

There is a very strong analogy with what we do now and what we did with windows. And it is even more analogeous for the internet to what we did in 1995 with windows, the browser and the 18 months that followed...Today, it is far more ambitious

Can it be clearer?

Well it is pretty clear in the Bill Gates speach on the new microsoft.net website what they have in mind (Pay attention to minute 21:30 seconds of the speech)

There is a very strong analogy with what we do now and what we did with windows. And it is even more analogeous for the internet to what we did in 1995 with windows, the browser and the 18 months that followed...Today, it is far more ambitious

Can it be clearer?

Well it is pretty clear in the Bill Gates speach on the new microsoft.net website what they have in mind (Pay attention to minute 21:30 seconds of the speech)

There is a very strong analogy with what we do now and what we did with windows. And it is even more analogeous for the internet to what we did in 1995 with windows, the browser and the 18 months that followed...Today, it is far more ambitious

Can it be clearer?

Well it is pretty clear in the Bill Gates speach on the new microsoft.net website what they have in mind (Pay attention to minute 21:30 seconds of the speech)

There is a very strong analogy with what we do now and what we did with windows. And it is even more analogeous for the internet to what we did in 1995 with windows, the browser and the 18 months that followed...Today, it is far more ambitious

Can it be clearer?