oreilly.com · Domains · Slashdot Mirror

Nothing New by Aaron+M.+Renn · 1999-10-06 21:18 · Score: 2 · on "Is Technology Unplugging Our Minds?"

Intelligent writers have been talking about this for years. One I particularly like is Steve Talbott, who publishes the NETFUTURE newsletter. He was also the article of a very well regarded book on the subject called "The Future Does Not Compute". I disagree with much of what he says (particularly his New Age nature worshiping), but it's always a good read. Especially important are the writings on computers in education.

The following essays he's written should give you a feel for the flavor of NETFUTURE:

Why Timesaving Devices Don't Save Time

and

The Principle of Technological Deceit

Here's the link, for those of us like me.. by Kitsune+Sushi · 1999-09-28 14:59 · Score: 2 · on Compare and Contrast: Linux and Apple

..who are a little lazy. ;)

Twenty Years of Berkeley Unix. While it proves some points previously asserted by others, I'll state simply that even though *BSD has no Unix code left in it, it's still a rework of the Unix code (and members of the Unix family tree). I personally find it to be more elegant to start from scratch than a complete rework. And that's what was meant.

The rest of the book is pretty good, too, even though I was disappointed that the section on Stallman was a reprint of a page on the GNU site. Yeah, like I haven't read /that/ before.. It's /really/ funny what Torvalds has to say about GNU in his chapter, especially ebout Emacs. ;) Goes to further prove I don't care a whole lot about his views aside from kernel hacking. ;)

Clotho.org - Slashdot for the rest of "us". by JordanH · 1999-09-28 03:49 · Score: 1 · on Clotho.Org and the Coming Cyberclysm

What's being recommended here is really not much different from Slashdot moderation, but it applies to subject matter that's not "News for Nerds", in other words, stuff that doesn't matter.

It would have to be an AI as no people have the time or patience to sort through all the garbage, right?

Or do they?

Don't all the myriad "portal" sites do exactly this, except they use Human Intelligence rather than Artificial Intelligence.

Perhaps it can be argued that commercial portal sites are more likely to try to sell us some of the garp we're trying to avoid by going to a portal. (Has anyone seen what's happened to Deja(news) lately? It's hardly recognizable. Almost no mention of discussion groups or News at all!)

That being the case, perhaps there is a place in this Wide World of Web for a 'Public Service' portal. A portal that helps us find things we need, but without any advertising or other (investor) types of issues. Kind of like NPR for the Internet. Well, like NPR used to be before they started running all those ads that start "This program is made possible by...".

I find it Ironic that Katz, while arguing for a filter that would make his web experience both enlightening and convenient, failed to avail himself of that fine HTML feature of providing a link to a URL.

Here's an extract from the article that I've edited for your clicking convenience.

In his recent essay in Netfut ure No. 94, Winner suggests that humanity's needs for the coming century be rated on a 1 to 10 scale.

Conflict of interest? by Ed+Avis · 1999-09-20 17:30 · Score: 2 · on Writing Apache Modules with Perl and C

Has anyone else noticed that O'Reilly have their own web server which competes with Apache?

I expect the publishing and software divisions are kept separate, to avoid the IBM syndrome of products being squashed / crippled to avoid 'cannibalizing' sales of products from another division. But it still seems a bit strange.

Re:One True(tm) Language such a good idea? by funcused · 1999-09-15 04:39 · Score: 1 · on Computer Programming for Everyone

And the danger extends beyond language bigotry. Python is nice, and all, but is it the wave of the future, or yet another dead end? If Python goes one way, and programming trends go another, are we doing the high school kids any great service here?

Could be just as much of a service if Python were to die (perish the thought). It would force the students to then apply the basic programming principles they learned when writing Python code to other languages. Hopefully this would cause them to think through why they're doing it the way they are leading to better written code.

I am still in college but won't take another CS course here, it's just not taught well. That and they teach C++ and now Java as intro languages. Ugh.

-funcused

Re:Debate between Tannenbaum and Linus? by Mr+Windows · 1999-09-13 16:38 · Score: 1 · on Talking with Matt Welsh

The usenet posts are published as Appendix A of ``Open Sources'' from O'Reilly. An interesting debate between Tannenbaum (who thinks that micro-kernel OSs are The One True Way), Linus (who mainly agrees, but is more pragmatic about things), and others (guest appearances from Ken Thompson). It's a good read, and the place where I learnt LBT's middle initial :) Stephen

Re:Debate between Tannenbaum and Linus? by Mr+Windows · 1999-09-13 16:38 · Score: 1 · on Talking with Matt Welsh

The usenet posts are published as Appendix A of ``Open Sources'' from O'Reilly. An interesting debate between Tannenbaum (who thinks that micro-kernel OSs are The One True Way), Linus (who mainly agrees, but is more pragmatic about things), and others (guest appearances from Ken Thompson). It's a good read, and the place where I learnt LBT's middle initial :) Stephen

WebSite Pro by evhead · 1999-09-10 01:32 · Score: 1 · on Interview: Tim O'Reilly Answers

It's interesting that no one ever brings up the fact that O'Reilly actually publishes a web server that is not open source and only runs on Windows. And from the look of a survey they're running right now, they're planning a new version. That's all.

WebSite Pro by evhead · 1999-09-10 01:32 · Score: 1 · on Interview: Tim O'Reilly Answers

It's interesting that no one ever brings up the fact that O'Reilly actually publishes a web server that is not open source and only runs on Windows. And from the look of a survey they're running right now, they're planning a new version. That's all.

Here is the correct link (add an s!) by azad · 1999-09-09 20:41 · Score: 1 · on Interview: Tim O'Reilly Answers

They missed an 's' off. Here is the correct link:

http://www.oreilly.com/openbooks/

Several points by Chris+Johnson · 1999-09-08 20:11 · Score: 3 · on Yankees.Com Hits A Home Run

No book publisher ever made an effective website? http://www.oreilly.com/.
The Yankees have a site worth spotlighting on Slashdot? I'm sorry, I'll go with the professionals who checked it out and reported their findings: over-the-top sites are Web pollution, and I'm told they don't even get decent cross-platform results. Is Jon Katz getting kickbacks or something? First Apple, now this.
Lastly, 'shovelware' is more accurately a relic of the CD-Rom boom days, when people thought anything on a CD-Rom was instant riches. CD-Roms are capacious, especially back in those days, so it was indeed like 'shovelling' data onto them, and there were a lot of disks made that were total garbage to cash in on the (hypothetical) boom- hence, shovelware.
Isn't there anybody who could at least _edit_ Jon Katz and stop certain articles like this from being run as articles? Sometimes it's awfully obvious that he's blown it again. I use a Mac and really like it and think Apple's doing great things, but I still think his lovefest of Apple was _also_ inappropriate for Slashdot. Stop The Madness... (str)

Already done it (sort of) by Tet · 1999-09-06 13:27 · Score: 2 · on Interview: Ask Tim O'Reilly

They made the MH & xmh book available when it went out of print.

It's slightly different when books are superceded by newer versions, though. The old version is still useful, and the differences aren't necessarily sufficient to make releasing the old version of the book commercially viable. For example, my DNS and BIND book is good enough for what I need to know. Although it's been replaced by a newer version, I wouldn't have gone out and bought the new one (although some kind soul was good enough to buy it for my birthday anyway :-)

I seem to recall reading that O'Reilly do offer a trade in service, where you can send them the front cover of a previous version to get a discount on the newer version of a book.

Already done it (sort of) by Tet · 1999-09-06 13:27 · Score: 2 · on Interview: Ask Tim O'Reilly

They made the MH & xmh book available when it went out of print.

It's slightly different when books are superceded by newer versions, though. The old version is still useful, and the differences aren't necessarily sufficient to make releasing the old version of the book commercially viable. For example, my DNS and BIND book is good enough for what I need to know. Although it's been replaced by a newer version, I wouldn't have gone out and bought the new one (although some kind soul was good enough to buy it for my birthday anyway :-)

I seem to recall reading that O'Reilly do offer a trade in service, where you can send them the front cover of a previous version to get a discount on the newer version of a book.

URL for the article by Paul+Crowley · 1999-09-06 01:22 · Score: 2 · on Interview: Ask Tim O'Reilly

The article I'm referring to is here.
--

Embedded Programmming? by odd_parity · 1999-09-05 22:20 · Score: 1 · on Interview: Ask Tim O'Reilly

Do you have plans to publish anymore books on embedded programming and/or writing device drivers? Michael Barr's Programming Embedded Systems is a good introduction to a topic covered by very few good books.

8N1

Re:Becoming an author by ryanr · 1999-09-05 21:11 · Score: 3 · on Interview: Ask Tim O'Reilly

Folks who want to ask questions about how to write for O'Reilly should probably read the excellent resource that they have already provided:

http://www.oreilly.com/oreilly/author/intro.html

Most of these questions have already been answered. I'd hate to waste a question that will probably have the answer: "read the FAQ"

Do you have a least favourite book? by Tet · 1999-09-05 20:55 · Score: 5 · on Interview: Ask Tim O'Reilly

Are there any books that you look back on and wish you hadn't bothered with? In particular, I'm thinking about John Bloomer's Power Programming with RPC, which is the only book I feel tarnishes O'Reilly's good name. It the only one I've read (and I've got most of them, to be honest :-) that I feel is poorly written and difficult to read. For a programming book not to include a simple "Hello, world!" type program until chapter 6 or so is, IMHO, pretty unforgivable.

Re:Thoughts. by lalartu · 1999-09-02 06:17 · Score: 1 · on Ask Slashdot: Using SSH on non-US Sites for Crypto Development?

Seeing as sending the keystrokes could be viewed as export, I don't think you could do it.

As for being a US citizen and coding outside the US it appears to have been done relating to at least one ssh product. TTSSH is a free SSH client for Windows. It is implemented as an extension DLL for Teraterm Pro by Robert O'Callahan roc+tt@cs.cmu.edu

Although the last update was Dec 98 so it is possible that he is now in jail.

excerpt:
"November 3, 1998: A lot of people have been asking me when TTSSH will support SSH 2.x. Unfortunately SSH 2.x is a very big, complex protocol and looks a lot of work to implement from scratch. Also, it looks like it will be hard to integrate all its features into Teraterm without significantly modifying the design of the main Teraterm application. There's no way I'll have enough time overseas in the foreseeable future to undertake this project, sorry. I hope there are other people with more time and freedom... "

That seems to indicate that the work was done outside the US.

As for other forms of export, I would guess that you could always do what was done by theEFF or with PGP.
Remember it is only the electronic export of crypto that is the problem.

Re:Troll Tech are *OK* by JosephRJustice · 1999-08-30 10:19 · Score: 1 · on Feature: Is Open Source for Windows Less Important?

I am totally unfamiliar with what the Qt (or equivalent for Gnome) toolkits provide. So, I realize this may be a totally inapplicable suggestion.

But, for certain types of "free GUI'd application" development, or at least prototyping, would using Perl plus Tk be at least somewhat applicable?

I know Perl is available for Win32 platforms (95/98/NT). You can get it from www.activestate.com. You can get Tk for Perl from the same place. You can get books on using Perl and Tk together from www.oreilly.com.

I'm certainly not going to claim this is a complete alternative for Qt, but might it work better (assuming what you want to do should be GUI'd) than ncurses?

--
Joseph R. Justice

Re:Overload by justo · 1999-08-30 06:19 · Score: 1 · on Load Test the New Slashdot Setup

Slashdot:News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters. faq
code
awards
privacy
slashNET
older stuff
rob's page
preferences
andover.net
submit story
advertising
supporters
past polls
topics
about
jobs
hof

Sections books
ask slashdot
features
radio

This page was generated by a Swarm of Psycho Chickens for justo (2858).

Slashdot Load Testing (Continues) Posted by CmdrTaco on Mon August 30, 02:13 PM EDT
from the ain't-this-fun? dept.
Fixed so far:

Dropped http MaxClients down to 75
increased mysql max_connections to to 250

(they were 150 & 100, so we had 450 http forks fighting for 100 mysql connections. Oops! Thank god for load testing! I guess its problably good that I post another story just so that we can simulate normal Slashdot a little better: Slashdot doesn't usually have just 1 story with people posting on (well, unless we mention evolution or the GPL being violated or something) (Oh, and don't post comments with bug reports, there is no way I'll be able to keep up, email 'em. I won't reply, but I'll read it)

( Read More... | 190 of 190 comments )

Help Test Our New Server! Posted by CmdrTaco on Mon August 30, 12:51 PM EDT
from the load-testing-is-cool dept.
So here it is: A mirror of Slashdot (as of a week or so ago). It exists now for testing: So feel free to post comments and help test the new load balancer. For the curious, the new system has 3 http machines (P2s) and one mysql box (a dual P2) with a load balancer trying to keep everyone all equally busy. And its about time: the old setup has been really stressed out trying to keep up with everyone. Anyway, don't get to attached to any of your comments here, when we're satisfied that the new setup is stable, I'm gonna mirror over Slashdot and make the final switcheroo.

( Read More... | 335 of 335 comments )

Interview: Mandrake Answers Posted by Roblimo on Fri August 20, 12:00 PM EDT
from the x-leads-to-enlightenment dept.
Monday a whole bunch of people had questions for Mandrake, one of the heavies behind Enlightenment. Slashdot Moderators picked the best ones. We forwarded them, unedited, to Mandrake on Tuesday. His (excellent) answers appear below.

( Read More... | 11562 bytes in body | 9 of 9 comments )

Geeks in the Space: The Attack of 5 Posted by Hemos on Thu August 19, 04:10 AM EDT
from the more-stuff-to-listen-to dept.
Well, we've done it again. Yes, Geeks in Space, Episode 5 has been released. In it, we lament the lack of good news, talk about anti-matter, and the hiring of hacks by companies. You can also become...educated in my long-term plan for the hostile takeover of a certain Redmond-based company.

( Read More... | 14 of 17 comments )

Apple announces Darwin 0.3 Posted by Hemos on Thu August 19, 12:24 AM EDT
from the more-to-download dept.
J. FoxGlov writes "Macintouch reports that v0.3 of Darwin, the open-source foundation for Mac OS X Server is available on Apple's Public Source site. Apple Developer Connection members can get it on CD for $29. Check Public Source for more about the Darwin SDK and the new Darwin. "

( Read More... | 67 of 68 comments )

Microsoft's New Audio Format Cracked Posted by Hemos on Wed August 18, 05:23 PM EDT
from the secure-this-buddy dept.
Barcode (JPB) was one of the first to send us the word from Wired that the new audio format Microsoft introduced (Two days ago), supposed to be a secure format (resricting playback) has already been cracked. Dimension Music first carried the news-and what a name the crack has *grin*.

( Read More... | 238 of 240 comments )

Find your Star Wars Twin Posted by Hemos on Wed August 18, 05:16 PM EDT
from the what-freud-really-wanted-to-do dept.
The_Monk writes "Ever wanted to know your Star Wars twin? Now this incredibly important information can be verified. It placed me the likes of Astro Mech Droids, 'Tarkin, and R2-D2. " Ahem-as the lost twin of Lando (extraversion), I have a Cloud City I'd like to sell someone. But I'm about as agreeable as Boba, always a bonus.

( Read More... | 94 of 94 comments )

Now Police Can 'See' Through Walls Posted by Roblimo on Wed August 18, 12:40 PM EDT
from the move-along-there's-nothing-to-see-here dept.
Bram writes "Just found an article about another way to invade privacy." He's talking about hand-held radar systems police can use to detect breathing, beating hearts or other motion through walls and other obstacles. Sounds like a declassified version of the Ground Support Radar [GSR] units we used years ago in the Army. I can see why police would want them, and I can also see why Bram considers them a privacy threat. Depends on how they're used, I suppose.

( Read More... | 205 of 205 comments )

FreeType posts patent warning Posted by Hemos on Wed August 18, 11:53 AM EDT
from the i-want-my-verdonna dept.
Anonymous Coward writes "According to the the FreeType web page, there have been some new concerns raised about Apple's patents on TrueType. I hope this doesn't affect the planned TrueType support in XF86 4. " It appears that they are still checking into the issue, but I'd really like TrueType support. A lot. Let's hope Apple responds nicely.

( Read More... | 202 of 206 comments )

Microsoft to "publish code" to Instant Messenger Posted by Hemos on Wed August 18, 09:49 AM EDT
from the want-more-market-share dept.
VFVTHUNTER writes "According to this article at cnet, MS, in an attempt to gain a share of AOL's Instant Messenger Service Market, announced today it is going to publish the protocol to its own messenger service. " It's important to note it's NOT the source code, just the protocol.

( Read More... | 192 of 192 comments )

natelinx

Be News

Unisys gif-lzw-license Model Changed

YMF724 Driver Patch

Guidelines for Sane Advocacy

BeNews Is Moving - Outages Planned

Audio Buzz "Fixes" Announced

Austin BUG Meeting This Wednesday

Wacom Driver Goes Open Source

3dsound Secrets Revealed

ACE Bot, Devastation for Quake2

Be.com Frontpage Layout Updated Get more Be...

Alta Vista Search Alta Vista

any language Chinese Czech Danish Dutch English Estonian Finnish French German Greek Hebrew Hungarian Icelandic Italian Japanese Korean Latvian Lithuanian Norwegian Polish Portuguese Romanian Russian Spanish Swedish

Q3Arena.com

Game Name Builder v1.32

John Carmack Updated His .plan

Voice Actors Needed

KOTS Mod Needs Servers

More Ass Kicking Quake Action...

Dr. Dobb's TechNetCast

Open Source At Work

LIVE From LinuxWorld

What's Wrong with HTTP and Why It Doesn't Matter

Inside the BeOS

A Brief History of Unix and the Internet

Author of sendmail on open-source and early days of email

Linus Torvalds on State of Linux

Creator of Tcl/Tk: Open-Source Creates Commercial Opportunities

Inside the Netscape Gecko Open Source Browser Team More TechNetCast

Hollywood Bitchslap

Review: Bowfinger - 'Funniest Eddie Murphy movie in a decade. Steve Martin showed...'

Review: Mickey Blue-Eyes - 'Not as funny as it could have been'

Feature: Robert Towne - From Chinatown to Hollywood. More from Hollywood Bitchslap

Slashdot Poll Preferred Compression
zip
gzip
bzip
compress
arj
other
[ Results | Polls ]
Comments:383 | Votes:24104

Crazy Person

Lunch

The Funnies (?)

Features The latest installment of Geeks in Space is up at The Sync. We talk about the Red Hat IPO, crazy naming schemes, and much more.

Perhaps you are seeking Jon Katz's series of articles related to recent events in Colorado. These articles include Voices from the Hellmouth, More Stories from the Hellmouth or The Price of Being Different,

With all the hype about the recent MindCraft Linux/NT benchmarks, you might be interested in reading ESR's Response to the Mindcraft Fiasco

For something different, try reading my little essay Thoughts from the Furnace about the internet, and flame.

Update: 05/03 01:48 by CT : Past Features

Mozilla.org

PerLDAP v1.4 Released

M9 Released

Mozilla BOF at O'Reilly OSS Convention

cvs-mirror.mozilla.org Is (no longer) Sick

Mozilla Birds-Of-A-Feather Session

Getting Involved

Blackwood

Bugathon Needs JavaScripters

News From The Front

M8 On The Wire

Mozilla for BeOS

Mozilla is Alive and Well

BugAThon 300

New Newsgroup Announcements

M7 Binaries Released

Slashdot

Load Test the New Slashdot Setup

Microwave T1 Service

Internet Tax Moratorium Over?

Feature: Is Open Source for Windows Less Important?

Interview: Ask Alan Cox

3rd State of the Perl Onion

LinuxPPC challenge rides again

Review: The First 20 Million is Always the Hardest

Star Office to become Open Source?

Palm Gameboy Emulator update & screens

Linuxnewbie.org

Your Hotmail Account Has Been Exposed

Securing The Home Linux System: Updated

Glibc2 Slackware is here!

Segfault.org: South Park Story

TWO New Slackware Mailing Lists More LinuxNewbie.org...

Freak Tech

Molecular-based logic gates

10 Gbps optical though air.

Magnetic spacecraft propulsion

Linuxdev.net

Interview with Borland Sr. Product Mgr

Gizmo3D v0.92 Released

CORBA 3 News

More On XHTML 1.0

Oracle Offer Linux Technology Track More LDN...

Wired Webmonkey

Webmonkey Guides

Cheap and Cool Photos

Hiring a Site Developer

Searching for Mr. Burrito

Introduction to Apache

Why Ask Why?

PHP/MySQL Tutorial

Wait for It More Webmonkey

Older Stuff

Wednesday August 18

Scientists create digital bug-life (131)

New Space Propulsion System Uses Sun's Magnetic Field (120)

Cassini visits Earth (175)

Descent 3 Linux Client (71)

Tuesday August 17

Playstation 2 Outperforms Everything? (240)

SIGGRAPH '99 OpenGL/Linux BOF Minutes (37)

Dell Belgium forced to install Windows only? (75)

Relativity Used to Devise New Form of Crypt (24)

Robots Battle to the Death! (124)

Will PPC Become the Preferred Linux Platform? (277)

IBMs 15 hour Laptop Batteries (72)

Feature: After the Red Hat IPO Ball is Over (236)

Feature:Obscurity as Security (194)

l0pht develops Sniffer Sniffer (101)

NASA collecting anti-matter with giant ballon (109)

CIA releases its own X-Files (111)

Packet Storm Security is back (36)

Monday August 16

Sun Claims MS Steals Vision (162)

Scientists Find Evidence of Black Holes Sucking (163)

MS Dirty Pool Against AOL? (204)
Older Articles
Yesterday's Edition

Weather24.com
(city, state or zip)

Re:Old news...but good books by ckd · 1999-08-23 02:24 · Score: 1 · on Mainstream Books for Palm Pilots

There's no Peanut Reader for any platform except the Palm...which means you either get a Palm or run a Palm emulator on your desktop--and you can't run a Palm emulator until you have a Palm ROM, which you get either by buying a Palm and using a ROM reader, or signing up for the development program and going through a bunch of rigamarole to get it.

Or by buying the 2nd Edition PalmPilot: The Ultimate Guide , which comes with a CD-ROM including not only the emulator, but also licensed copies of the ROMs for various PalmOS versions. (Oh, and lots of Palm software including many e-texts.)

Much cheaper than even a used Palm if you just want to see what one might be like, and if you do buy one you have a nice book too!

Re:Tuning Apache by embobo · 1999-08-19 03:57 · Score: 1 · on Apache 1.3.9 Now Available

O'Reilly to the rescue. Have a look at

http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/w ebpt/noframes.html for web performance tuning and

http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/spt /noframes.html

for system performance tuning.

And remember, you can tune a filesystem (tunefs(1M) in Solaris) but you can't tune a fish.

Re:Tuning Apache by embobo · 1999-08-19 03:57 · Score: 1 · on Apache 1.3.9 Now Available

O'Reilly to the rescue. Have a look at

http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/w ebpt/noframes.html for web performance tuning and

http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/spt /noframes.html

for system performance tuning.

And remember, you can tune a filesystem (tunefs(1M) in Solaris) but you can't tune a fish.

Re:Not First....HAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!!! by embobo · 1999-08-19 03:51 · Score: 1 · on Apache 1.3.9 Now Available

Have a look at

http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/w ebpt/noframes.html

This might help by rangek · 1999-08-09 22:57 · Score: 1 · on Ask Slashdot: On Good Software Design Processes

Check out this O'Reilly book. There are a few good essays in there about software engineering, in general and specifically dealing with open source. Like "Software Engineering" by Paul Vixie. Hope this helps.

Re:Linux != Easy to use by Robin+Hood · 1999-07-29 21:27 · Score: 1 · on Windows Domination May End Next Year

Well, my first advice would be to get another book. I have nothing against the "... For Dummies" series per se, but you'll soon want more technical detail. Although I've never read it myself, I've heard nothing but praise for Running Linux, by Matt Welsh and Lar Kaufman. The second edition is currently in stores, but the third edition is due for publication in August 1999, so you might want to wait and buy that one.

Second, you may have felt overwhelmed by all the HOWTOs available at the Linux Documentation Project, and you might have missed a few of the handier ones. Well, <FONT FACE="large, friendly letters">DON'T PANIC!</FONT> :-) As a former "dos junkie", you'd probably get the most initial mileage out of the From DOS/Windows to Linux HOWTO. I also recommend the Linux Gazette, which seems aimed at new Linux users and often contains a whole lot of handy tips and tricks that will sometimes make your life simpler.

As a former DOS junkie myself (who still occasionally amazes Win95 users with my knowledge of CONFIG.SYS and "DOS=HIGH,UMB" and so on) I'll predict that once you get used to Linux's quirks (and yes, it does have a few), you'll feel right at home. It may take a year or two (it did for me), but after a couple of years, you'll wonder how you could have used anything else.

Have fun, and feel free to E-mail me if you have any questions.
-----

Re:Linux != Easy to use by Robin+Hood · 1999-07-29 21:27 · Score: 1 · on Windows Domination May End Next Year

Well, my first advice would be to get another book. I have nothing against the "... For Dummies" series per se, but you'll soon want more technical detail. Although I've never read it myself, I've heard nothing but praise for Running Linux, by Matt Welsh and Lar Kaufman. The second edition is currently in stores, but the third edition is due for publication in August 1999, so you might want to wait and buy that one.

Second, you may have felt overwhelmed by all the HOWTOs available at the Linux Documentation Project, and you might have missed a few of the handier ones. Well, <FONT FACE="large, friendly letters">DON'T PANIC!</FONT> :-) As a former "dos junkie", you'd probably get the most initial mileage out of the From DOS/Windows to Linux HOWTO. I also recommend the Linux Gazette, which seems aimed at new Linux users and often contains a whole lot of handy tips and tricks that will sometimes make your life simpler.

As a former DOS junkie myself (who still occasionally amazes Win95 users with my knowledge of CONFIG.SYS and "DOS=HIGH,UMB" and so on) I'll predict that once you get used to Linux's quirks (and yes, it does have a few), you'll feel right at home. It may take a year or two (it did for me), but after a couple of years, you'll wonder how you could have used anything else.

Have fun, and feel free to E-mail me if you have any questions.
-----

Re:Glad to see someone hasn't jumped to conclusion by norm_bone · 1999-07-28 00:05 · Score: 1 · on Government Wants to do Massive Internet Monitoring

B) They already have anti-terrorist laws in effect for "conventional" technology, why is this any different

So because they're taking unreasonable "conventional" steps to violate my privacy, I should accept unreasonable, "novel" forms of intrusion? Nope. I don't buy it.

Re:I'll use paper for now, thanks. by jsmith · 1999-07-27 08:30 · Score: 1 · on Beaming Money

hmm, that could be a problem. but the technology exists to make everything else about the product secure; it shouldn't be impossible to figure out a solution to the hardware issues. besides, if you lost your 'wallet' most likely none of the transactions would be completed unless both parties sync'd them up. who wants a cashless society anyway - how would you buy dope? an excellent book to read on the subject is "Web Security and Commerce" at www.ora.com

Re:Money... it's a gas... by Matthew+Weigel · 1999-07-24 05:27 · Score: 2 · on The Puffin Group Sponsors Open Source Writers

If you chop [per-copy royalties], then you aren't being adequately compensated...

What is the difference between per-copy royalties from documentation, and per-copy royalties from code?

The only possible answer I can see would be, "because you're printing out books." Well, what's the difference between that and charging for distribution of software on physical media?

There are two takes on this that all support free redistribution of documentation, and there are two views that support royalties:

reasons for free documentation:

Documentation of software is a part of the software package itself. Therefore, if the software is free, why shouldn't the documentation be free? If the software is of high quality, why should I skimp on documentation?
If I'm just downloading the documentation with free software, then the money lost by any one due to my having the documentation in front of me is close to nil. The difference between the money lost from letting me download software, or letting me download software and documentation, is nil. The cost difference between writing software for free, and writing documentation concurrently with the software, is not generally measurable, so again the difference is nil.

reasons against free documentation:

Hey! I wrote those docs, I should be compensated! (see Why Software Should Not Have Owners)
The difficulty of producing quality hardcopy documentation(i.e., going through a publisher) require a more conventional (non-free) way of doing things.

In my opinion, the first argument should not even be considered for free software; the only reason to use it is to try to make available the software free of charge, but make using it so hard that documentation also needs to be bought. That essentially means crippling the software (or at least the user interface, which is an important part of the software ), or similarly producing the software in a sub-optimal development environment.

The second is reasonable; if you look at the LDP's and O'Reilly's Linux Network Administrator's Guide, it is woefully outdated, due at least in part (as far as I can discern) to the ease of downloading it rather than buying it, and most people's willingness to do so (and hence the unprofitability of updating it).

A more carefully considered presentation of these views is over at Free Software and Free Manuals.

So how do you make money writing documentation? Well, how do you make money selling free software? Personal service, consulting, teaching, etc. Can people make money doing that? You betcha (if you don't believe me, look at how profitable certification teaching is!).

How much did personality matter? by tilly · 1999-07-23 19:11 · Score: 2 · on Behlendorf Interview in developerWorks

In Open Sources Brian made it very clear that the Apache group has been friendly to commercial interests from the beginning. In fact the project is under a BSD license and a significant portion of the key developers also own companies that sell products based on Apache. (Not that they planned things that way, but they wanted to leave the possibility open.) Therefore I have to think that when IBM came in and wanted to do the exact same thing, well they are bigger than the rest but far from the first in the Apache group with that strategy.

But in many other OSS groups I think that IBM would not have fit in nearly as well.

Another point that Brian makes which gets glossed over by some Rah, rah, OSS is great! types is that OSS works out differently in different types of areas. He made the point that open source works well for certain types of projects but not at all for others. He gave as an extreme example that it fails for software for doing surveys for finding oil.

I have seen points like this made in many ways by many people, but for me the first and best version was one that I saw made by an engineer here. The engineer compared software to engineering and pointed out that in engineering there is a spectrum in terms of secrecy. If you are engaged in designing roads, buildings, or other things that have to do with basic infrastructure, then your exact design will be open, publically reviewed, and verified by outside people. This is because people have learned (the hard way) that this is the only way to reliably get quality. At an opposite extreme the design of the latest consumer device is likely to have a design that is kept secret.

He then drew the same comparison to software, and pointed out that open source software first showed up where it made the most sense, in the infrastructure of the Internet. As it matures it has been developing into smaller and smaller niches. He saw this as a sign that software is maturing just like engineering did before. But, he maintained, there will always remain niches where open source simply does not make sense.

As I say, I have since seen the same point made many times (including in several essays in Open Sources), but the first time was the biggest eye-opener for me.

Regards,
Ben Tilly

5.6 -- Selected to attract attention by marnold · 1999-07-21 10:27 · Score: 1 · on On Perl 5.6

There was a "Perl Town Hall" at the end of last years Perl Conference. During the question and answer session, perl users griped about being at the mercy of evil sysadmins who refused to install new versions of Perl solely based on the version of the product. Their sysadmins would reason, "The version number has increased by only one-thousandth of a point. Such an insignificant upgrade is not worthy of my precious sysadmin time!" (My sysadmins also subscribe to this foolish belief. But thanks to linux, I now have my own box where I can do what I please. But that's another story.)

Anyway, the panel (which consisted of Larry Wall, Chip S, brian d foy, Tim Bunce, Dick Hardt, Gurusamy Sarathy, Tim O'Reilly, and other people whom I can't remember right now) agreed that new versions of Perl should indeed have bigger version numbers -- something which more accurately represents the significance of the release. During this "town hall", they promised to do something about it. It looks like they finally have. It's good to see the change.

Where I work, I have an additional problem. I'm surrounded by people who HAVE been exposed to Perl. They, however, have dismissed Perl as a non-viable solution. Why? Well, their last exposure to Perl was back in the pre-4.0 days. Even though Perl has grown considerbly since then, they've never come back to take a second look and see the improvements. They've dismissed it forever. (Well, perhaps not forever, but it would take quite a bit to get them to give Perl another chance.)

So what would get these people to come back for another look? A new (much needed) edition of "Programming Perl"? A new primary version number -- Perl 6.0? Or maybe a new name altogether? I'm optimistic about Topaz. Even if Topaz has the same functionality as Perl, I believe the new name will attract some much-deserved attention. But that's just my very humble opinion.