Slashdot Mirror

I think the character processing is all done in regular expressions, and there is no one left working at Slashdot who understands regular expressions. They should really just open source Slashcode and let people make improvements.

Like this?

Why use Open Reddit when Slashdot code is easily available?

http://www.slashcode.com/

Well there's always this one, renowned for its modern easy to use UI and functionality, speed, lack of bugs, and that it almost never generates 504 errors.

Hey, don't hassle the Hoof. Besides, isn't slashcode freely available?

Admittedly, I don't know who Bennet Hasselhoof is. I guess I haven't been paying attention. ?

How do you feel about software projects where the authors pretend that the source code is free software, but never releases any of their updates to the code base?

For example Slashcode, the code running Slashdot, claims to be free software using the GPL version 2 and the Slashcode FAQ says that the version running on Slashdot is within a week of the version available on CVS, but not only did they apparently forget to update the FAQ when they switched to git in 2009, you'll also get an error, if you try to clone their git repository.

I know that the GPL can't be used to force the authors of Slashcode to release the updated version of the source code, so my question isn't from a legal standpoint, but more from a moral standpoint. How do you feel about the lack of updates to the public release of the Slashcode source?

How do you feel about software projects where the authors pretend that the source code is free software, but never releases any of their updates to the code base?

For example Slashcode, the code running Slashdot, claims to be free software using the GPL version 2 and the Slashcode FAQ says that the version running on Slashdot is within a week of the version available on CVS, but not only did they apparently forget to update the FAQ when they switched to git in 2009, you'll also get an error, if you try to clone their git repository.

I know that the GPL can't be used to force the authors of Slashcode to release the updated version of the source code, so my question isn't from a legal standpoint, but more from a moral standpoint. How do you feel about the lack of updates to the public release of the Slashcode source?

Yes please.
http://slashcode.com/

Ya, people forget that http://slashcode.com/ exists. Or you can just roll your own and probably do better. :)

There are plenty of other sites out there. So why don't you make your own Slashdot? You can get the code for the old (pre-beta) site from http://www.slashcode.com/ , which eventually leads to http://sourceforge.net/project...

I don't know how well the code runs now, but a long time ago, it was real heavy on the server side. There are plenty of other options, you just have to get users in. I had one up for a while, but with only 4 users it didn't do so well.

Slashdot uses Perl which is the programming language that has the best support for Unicode (while PHP support for this is comparatively almost inexistent).
But that doesn't make Unicode work magically. The slashcode has to take it into account.

where the Changes folder has stuff as new as 2003! and the Slash folder has changes from 2009-09-16. So that's the date that slashcode started to wilt, eh, if not die from lack of attention. Seems like I got to the party too late! (since I just found out about this place last year in the summer and just joined up / registered in september last year!) At least the archived articles are interesting, and everynow and then there are some cool articles visited by 30 people like reading from the ROM masks directly!

Maybe instead of just bitching about it uselessly you could actually do something useful. Go here and help fix the awful slashdot code: http://slashcode.com/www.slashcode.com/

After all, it is an open source project like any other.

An open source project is an open source project, except when it isn't. Have you looked at the last release date for slashcode? Right on the page it reads

The public Slash repo has not been updated in awhile

And that is from a message dated 02:01 PM October 1st, 2009, written by someone who no longer works for slasdhot.

In other words, more than three years of changes have been made to the code since the last time it was released on that site. Making changes to that would be like suggesting new extensions to Microsoft for Windows XP.

Show them this lousy website and tell them that is what happens when your company propagates lousy code - your existence goes to pot and your company is sold for very little money to a larger company who also doesn't care.

That should scare them straight.

Maybe instead of just bitching about it uselessly you could actually do something useful. Go here and help fix the awful slashdot code: http://slashcode.com/www.slashcode.com/

After all, it is an open source project like any other.

Actually, Slashcode handles unicode just fine. On Slashdot, it is just configured it to restrict the characters that can be used because of previous abuse problems.

Why do you need a kickstarter?

The code is here. Get a domain and some hosting, post some interesting stories. If you edit the summaries, and avoid flamebait articles, people might look!

Do you still provide the source code that runs the site? I remember that slashcode.com would track your changes in the past. Is this still true? I see that the last post there was in 2009.

And there is no business model so your point is not on topic. ;-)

You might want to ask the woman next to you for her signature.... I think you're way out on a limb there and Shirley Maclaine's signature might be the only benefit.

Google, IBM, eBay, BBC, etc, etc - a very long list of small enterprises who make money on the back of GPL (greater and lesser version) that you've probably never heard of, and can be excused for not being able to research.

Here's another obscure one that some taco cowboy rode into retirement.. You were probably a big authority in primary school - but we've all got this internet thing now, you can check stuff with it.

As soon as you submit a patch to Slashcode for slashdotters .

Is this new functionality going to be available as a part of slashcode?

Ooh, is this finally a thread in which Slashcode bashing isn't offtopic?

What would you use to write slashcode in today if not mod_perl?

Actually, are there any viable alternatives to javascript? Other than, you know, flash?

This sounds a lot like the slashdot moderation scheme...

For those who did not know, you can get the source code behind slashdot here

What is up with that? Some new Slashdot bug?

Yes. I noticed it over the weekend, and it was fixed this morning -- at any rate, tabs I opened this morning did not have the behavior -- and, the background of the preview is now yellow, showing that something else changed overnight as well.

The behavior in my case was that I would attempt to copy-and-paste from the body of a post, and it would scroll up as soon as I released the mouse. I think that there may have been an overlap with the key handler and mouse click handler? It seemed like it was going to the parent, but I didn't test the behavior, and can't now. At any rate, it was rather frustrating trying to respond to posts this weekend.

Another behavior that I saw: when I would middle-click a link in a comment, it would perform the same action as attempting to copy, and no tab would open. Fortunately I tried and succeeded at a workaround: right-click, and "Open Link in New Tab".

I did some research to see if it was public what the code change was that might have caused this, and who the author is in order to provide feedback and direction towards code reviews, staging servers, and test harnesses. I did not find much; here is Slashcode on Slashdot; click through to the site for it, and the first news item is (calling) from 2009 and says they hope to update the public repo weekly. Looking in the repo, it was also calling from 2009. So there don't seem to be any public recent commits.

Just now I tried a second search, and ended up on the "Tech" FAQ page, which had a link under Can I have your poll scripts? to Slashdot source code; when I middle-clicked on it, I got a tab with a 503 error. I closed all the tabs and was going to submit this, then thought I should report that 503 as well. I re-opened the tabs and now the behavior is different; now it appear to loop back to the page. Aha, it's to an anchor to an element (te500) that is two items below it, and the page is so short it doesn't scroll much. This is not a standard, but: if the page had a bunch of "blank lines" at the bottom then the anchor's behavior would make more sense, so that it would scroll so that section was at the top of the page. The size of the extra area could be defined via a JavaScript call to determine the height of the browser window, and add exactly one height to the end; that way, if there was an anchor on the last line of the page, it would still be shown at the top. The downside of course is the user might keep scrolling. (In fact, some pages that I opened in Slashdot over the weekend did have a bunch of extra blank space at the bottom, so perhaps someone was already thinking in that direction?)

Something else I noticed, as I was determining that the anchor above (te500) was in fact two sections away: the section between them is not in bold, and looks like a link but cannot be clicked on. Looking in the code, I see that the </a> tag, the CR, and the <h2> tag appear to be missing, after the <a name="te350" id="te350"> and before the "Can I import Slashdot headlines?"

Back to the original issue: now I see from your post that the erroneous code not only affected the entire comment body (I was finally able to copy, but what a struggle!), it also affected the header items as well (which I did not click this weekend). I hope that this provides a valuable bug(s) report.

While entirely possible that there are illicit drug usage at the Kennedy Space Center, it is also entirely possible that it was a false positive given that it was a field tests by law enforcement officials, it does not confirm anything. AFAIK there are a number of substances that produce false positives for most illicit drug field tests (which are merely quick and simple tests). And if you want a work place with possible mundane usage of unusual chemical substances that most street thugs don't have in their kitchen, then KSC is the place to be.

While the initial report is newsworthy, it isn't particularly interesting until the substance is at least confirmed in an analytic laboratory.

Maybe I'm going to have to write a math test module for the Slash code, testing basic statistical knowledge before to post stories and comments.

Says the guy posting in an Open Source website...

No, his analogy is proper, as he posited a case where people were restricted from the public posting use of the site, just as the argument here is trying to make private the public facade of a house (and the APPEARANCE of the OUTSIDE of your home is every bit as much a piece of public domain information as is the registration of your address). Your assertion of a "straw argument", in fact, relies on the improper equality of posting comments to this story like we're doing to -- well, I'd say stealing the site code if Slash wasn't already open.

If you want your home completely hidden from the public eye, you don't live in a city next door to other people -- you find an isolated parcel of real estate, surrounded by trees or hills or even a fence, with a private road leading to it, and you live there. If it's easier or cheaper to have a house that's on a common street, that ease or price is the price you pay for not having privacy in the commons. But to live there and say "I don't like people seeing my house from a car!" is no more your right than your "right" to demand that your neighbours in the house across the street may only stand facing forwards if they're on the porch, but that they can't look out their upstairs windows or even look out their downstairs windows if they're sitting on a chair.

i'd love to see /. put their source out there, money where their mouth is so to speak.

...You mean like http://www.slashcode.com/about.shtml ?

You mean like slash, or is there something I'm missing?

http://www.slashcode.com/

Here is the offending file on textfiles.com:

I found it by doing a search on google for "site:textfiles.com university computer system" and it came up as the first match

The Anarchives

In early march of 1995 I was arrested for "Unauthorized Use Of A Computer". (About 15 years ago)

I was being accused of breaking into the computer systems at the University Of Toronto for the purpose of publishing "Anarchist newsletters".

---------------

Doing a little bit more research shows that Jesse Hirsh is also a contributor to Slash Code:

http://www.slashcode.com/docs/AUTHORS

Actually, I've only heard about it from multiple first-hand accounts, but now that you mention it:

http://ask.slashcode.com/article.pl?sid=00/08/18/1746257

No problem, boss!

Shhh, don't tell anyone: http://www.slashcode.com/ ?

You mean like this?

http://www.slashcode.com/

This has been empty for a while now:
http://www.slashcode.com/sites.pl

There is slashcode, but that project seems to be stagnant. http://www.slashcode.com/

The computer you typed your post on...is it made of tea leaves?

No, but the site it talked to was made of perl.

Thank you. I'll be here all week. Tip the veal and try the waitress.

...Every 'contest' I've ever seen has been about popularity, not efficiency. They guy who sucks up to everyone and buys them beers after work will have the highest pay, while the guy who does his shitty job in silent magnificence will have one of the lowest pays...

My experience tends to verify your view. However, according to Dilbert, there is always a technical solution.

How about this?

You are using software which uses Berkeley sockets, from the BSD project, to communicate with others over the Internet. Either the code is from BSD or it has been written to be compatible with BSD sockets. Very little software in the world speaks TCP/IP that doesn't use Berkeley sockets to do so.

If you are using a closed-source browser other than Opera, you're using one based on the open-source Mosaic or Mozilla browsers, or on the open-source KHTML or WebKit (which itself is based on KHTML). The very first web browser and the very first graphical web browser were both open source. The very first browser was called WorldWideWeb (and later Nexus to avoid confusion with "The Web" as a whole), and Tim Berners-Lee released it into the public domain in 1993. All web browsers are knockoffs of an open source project, some more directly than others.

You are using a site which is written in a language which has always been open with language tools that have always been open (that language is Perl, by the way, and any commercial Perl distribution you've seen is a copy of the open one).

The code for the Slashdot site itself is open. Although some changes may be different between the version control system and the exact code this site runs at any given moment, an open-source version of the codebase exists over at Slashcode.com for your enjoyment or use.

The site is served by use of an open-source web server called Apache. Perhaps you've heard of it. The original web server was also open-source software, and was called CERN HTTPd. CERN HTTPd was adopted by the W3C as W3C HTTPd and has sicne been supplanted by the open-source web server Jigsaw. All web servers are clones of an open-source project.

Any version of Emacs you might use, including any of the commercial Emacs clones that are proprietary and closed-source, are based on the open-source Emacs written by none other than RMS.

Most of the first games for computers had freely available source, and some of them are still available. That's a whole market in which the closed-source people were not the first movers.

Read your journal: fuckin' genius. I wish they'd hurry up and fix the meta-moderation so we can help put an end to moronic moderation, like the above (currently your post stands at -1 Offtopic, when it should be +5 Funny).

From the grand-parent:

This guy has been posting inane or trolling comments for a couple of hours that immediately get modded up, pushing him to +3 (links below). I am fairly certain that this is sock-puppetry

It's either sock-puppetry, or he actually wrote a few posts that were informative/funny/insightful, given Slashdot's moderation system, which is more likely?

For anyone wondering, to get mod points on Slashdot you have to have fulfill a lot of conditions, for example: you must have excellent karma; you must not have visited the site for a set period of time (I usually get mod points after going on holiday); you must use the mod points within a certain period of time; Slash also seems to go into 'downright suspicious' mode if two accounts are on the same IP. It is therefore, pretty bloomin' difficult to sock puppet for mod points on Slashdot. I haven't studied it myself, but the code is available, have a look and judge for yourselves.

Slash, the code that runs Slashdot, is open source and freely available - http://www.slashcode.com/ - there are lots of sites that bear more than a passing resemblance to Slashdot simply because the codebase is the same.

Yeah but I think sourceforge own the look and feel. I believe there was once a slashdot in spain but I can't find it now. The slashdot page on wikipedia has a link to a japanese slashdot.

I think somebody has ripped off the L&F for their own site in China. Wouldn't be the first time.

Slash, the code that runs Slashdot, is open source and freely available - http://www.slashcode.com/ - there are lots of sites that bear more than a passing resemblance to Slashdot simply because the codebase is the same.

This meta-moaning is really getting to me. We are all the content of Slashdot.

I understand that bashing MSFT is a popular passtime around here, but when the article summaries are completely misleading, that starts to get in the way of the trustworthiness Slashdot as a whole.

What trustworthiness? See above.

If Slashdot hopes to remain relevant in the longterm, it needs to make at least some effort to accurately portray the stories.

What are you talking about? Who are asking to do this for you?

Otherwise, it will eventually become the internet equivalent of tabloids, worth only the entertainment value of reading the stories+comments [emphasis mine], and completely untrustworthy for actual facts.

Submit a story about it. Write in a journal. Or take slashcode and go start wedontbashmsftsomuch.com. Just stop being so passive and stupid.

What's with all the whining lately?

Why don't you submit a story? Or play with slashcode? Or troll creatively?

And what is this "credibility" you speak of? What part of "user-submitted" and "discussion" do you not get?

Seriously...

Why the hell is there a tiny url (http://www.tinyurl.com/6ehog5) in this story? Where does it point? Goatse? Tubgirl? Some random PDF? This is the stupidest thing I've ever seen slip by the editors. It's not like this is Twittr, where you're limited to 140 bytes.

Maybe Slashcode needs something to automatically follow links in articles and replace them with their target if they redirect.

Then go download Slash and check!

Especially since looking at the /. code really isn't that hard to do.

I think here is about the best you'll get.

Ummmmm, Slachcode?