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See "Trusted Computer System Evaluation Criteria, DOD standard 5200.28-STD" (better known as the Orange Book) for details.

It's easy and fun! Fool your friends! Win the lottery over and over again!

First, you must accept the Many Worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics.

Now that you accept the fact that every quantum action splits the universe into a vast number of alternate universes, the rest is simple.

1. Randomly select your lottery numbers using a quantum process. 2. If numbers do not win, destroy universe. Implementation of step 2 is left as an exercise for the reader.

Blatently stolen from the Jargon File .

This seems like an excellent article to read, even if you are not a dyed-in-the-wool libertarian. Interestingly, it was apparently published in Autumn 1995, long before the current media splash. I especially enjoyed the author's explanation of why the gap in the Tolkien movies exists (I always wondered before why Bakshi didn't finish the whole LoTR series).

One might extend the basic argument against copyright and patent further in the Linux/*BSD/FSF/OSS sphere. ESR's essay on OSS development as a type of bragging rights competition or "gift culture" (at http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/writings/homesteading/h omesteading.html comes to mind as an example. The basic tenet is that voluntary cooperation, in both the positive (contributions of code, etc.) and negative (boycotts of those who break the rules, anti-MS sentiment, etc.) senses, is the real basis for much of this phenomenon, as opposed to formal legalisms like those contained in the GPL. Although I certainly don't intend to slight RMS and the FSF for its attempts to use copyright law against itself, in order to formalize the hacker ethic. Perhaps this perspective will allay fears that the whole FSF/OSS model of development might collapse if the GPL were overturned in court, for instance.

P.S. IAAL (I am a Lawyer) but I don't practice - I still have my Texas bar card though. (Sysadmin work has been more fun/sane, plentiful, and almost as lucrative). Thus the following disclaimers apply:

Not Board Certified by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization. This is not intended as creating a lawyer-client relationship or providing any form of legal advice.

#include "disclaim.h"

Of course, after ESR's paper, marking a piece of open source code "please test" is equivalent to asking the author to have lots of people try it out. :)

"How ugly and/or simplistic they are"? Maybe you should spend more time working on the content of a web page instead of putting up fancy graphics and your complex tables that take 5 minutes to render because your WYSIWYG had to use them to get that layout you wanted, or the 9 pages that have to load up in all the frames you made with FrontPage Frame Wizard. Read ESR's HTML Hell Page and learn a thing or two. By the way, you have all this time to criticize our web pages... where's yours?

The ESR (or "RMS" as you spell it) paper is available here.

As usual, RMS hit the nail on the head with his proposal to force Microsoft to reveal/document all internal interfaces and binary file formats in their products - enabling the creation of compatibile competing products, open source or not. Companies (and open-source projects) can still complete on features (even Microsoft) but on a level playing field.

This achieves the nearly same effect in the marketplace as a breakup, without the incentive for the Microsoft (or "baby Bills") to fork their code base (more than it already is, that is).

Who knows, it might also be considered a precedent for how all SW companies should behave (but to make it a universal rule would require legislation). Imagine, a world where software connector conspiracies are illegal!

That's why ESR has the job he has. Whenever you want to say something "sucks," you have to translate it to "stinks" for the press. :-)

What this meant in practice, was that EGCS advanced rapidly, and has succeeded in reintegrating most of the separate GCC development communities (C++, Ada, Fortran, Pascal, Pentium optimisations) with major improvements (Haifa scheduler, integrated testsuite, much closer to C++ standard).

What this meant in practice, was that EGCS advanced rapidly, and has succeeded in reintegrating most of the separate GCC development communities (C++, Ada, Fortran, Pascal, Pentium optimisations) with major improvements (Haifa scheduler, integrated testsuite, much closer to C++ standard).

Linus Torvalds is a Swede, born and raised in Finland, currently residing in California. Check out the Linus FAQ for more info.

It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion.
It is by the beans of java that the thoughts acquire speed,
The hands acquire a shaking, the shaking becomes a warning.
It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion.

I've never seen the point of nicotine.

Surely the solution is simple: write everything in INTERCAL.

So I can't order one and get one tomorrow. That's what's called vaporware. I thought.

jargon.txt definition

From his web page,

"I practice Moo Do, an eclectic martial art based on Tae Kwon Do. In November 1997 I attained the rank of Black Belt (1st Dan)."

It's sad to live in a world where knowing how to

Things Hackers Detest and Avoid

IBM mainframes. Smurfs, Ewoks, and other forms of offensive cuteness. Bureaucracies. Stupid people. Easy listening music. Television (except for cartoons, movies, and "Star Trek" classic). Business suits. Dishonesty. Incompetence. Boredom. COBOL. BASIC. Character-based menu interfaces.

~from The New Hacker's Dictionary by You Know Who

Exercise: Construct a sentence using at least three of the things hackers detest and avoid.

Example:

Due to the OSI's dishonesty and incompetence, stupid people in business suits have taken to associating themselves, their businesses, or their political campaigns with ``open source'', in speeches or writings dripping with offensive cuteness; additionally, they (the OSI) seem to believe an organization, acting in no doubt with the efficiency and effect of most bureaucracies, rubber stamping licenses proffered by corporate lawyers*, is the best way to ensure the widespread use and general quality of free software.

*See Aesop's Fables; specifically, those relating to the Fox.

/*remember.c

The quote contained herein is derived from the campaign slogan of the 1992 Democratic party candidates for the presidency of the United States; William Clinton and Albert Gore. It is believed to be in the public domain, and thus derived works do not present any legal problems. If that is not the case, fuck you.

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.
*/

/* Compile with '-o remember'. Run at least once a day for best results.
*/

main(){

printf("It's the free software, Stupid. \n");

}
---------------------------------
"The Internet interprets censorship as damage,

Things Hackers Detest and Avoid

IBM mainframes. Smurfs, Ewoks, and other forms of offensive cuteness. Bureaucracies. Stupid people. Easy listening music. Television (except for cartoons, movies, and "Star Trek" classic). Business suits. Dishonesty. Incompetence. Boredom. COBOL. BASIC. Character-based menu interfaces.

~from The New Hacker's Dictionary by You Know Who

Exercise: Construct a sentence using at least three of the things hackers detest and avoid.

Example:

Due to the OSI's dishonesty and incompetence, stupid people in business suits have taken to associating themselves, their businesses, or their political campaigns with ``open source'', in speeches or writings dripping with offensive cuteness; additionally, they (the OSI) seem to believe an organization, acting in no doubt with the efficiency and effect of most bureaucracies, rubber stamping licenses proffered by corporate lawyers*, is the best way to ensure the widespread use and general quality of free software.

*See Aesop's Fables; specifically, those relating to the Fox.

/*remember.c

The quote contained herein is derived from the campaign slogan of the 1992 Democratic party candidates for the presidency of the United States; William Clinton and Albert Gore. It is believed to be in the public domain, and thus derived works do not present any legal problems. If that is not the case, fuck you.

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.
*/

/* Compile with '-o remember'. Run at least once a day for best results.
*/

main(){

printf("It's the free software, Stupid. \n");

}
---------------------------------
"The Internet interprets censorship as damage,

As long as you have your oxford or websters dictionary open, why don't you look up words like gopher, proxy, masquerade (as in IP masquerading). Guess what, you won't find the meanings that cs "nerds" use in those books. But check out the jargon file for definitions that are a little closer to what the community here goes on. <tim><

You're looking for http://www.tuxedo.org/~ esr/jargon/html/0/404-compliant.html

Is this a very subtle joke, or a missing link?

http://www.tuxedo.org/~es r/jargon/html/Z/404-compliant.html

/peter

I think /. should have a big ol' entry of its own, describing why its named what it is and so forth. I also want a big flat file with all the entries, because the Jargon File makes a great coffee table book when printed. I guess I'll just have to make a PERL spider to take care of it.

If you've read this before, you might want to just look at the Changelog. It has the full text of the new items. Keep up the good work, esr!

If you'd like a good, solid definition of "lame" maing unfounded defamatory accusations about a group of people you don't know anything first-hand about definitely qualifies for one.

Ok, then the kind of people that go in the meetings in Nashville (if this is breaking-systems-type-of-mentality meetings like I suppose) just happen to be similar to crackers as depicted in in "Wargame", "Hackers" and MAX_INT TV series, by chance (since I'm old-fashioned, I reserve the world "hacker" to people compatible with that history)

You always thought wrong, then. See the Hacker HOWTO.

Free Software projects are usually aimed at solving a problem -- making it possible to do something you couldn't do or making it easier to do something (read The Cathedral and the Bazaar by esr). Sometimes there are proprietary programs already doing these things -- or almost doing it -- and in that case it's a good idea to borrow ideas from those programs.

``Time to relax a little, recharge my batteries,
write some code, hang with my wife, play with our
cat, put a few hundred rounds of hardball through
the .45, and finish my paper on open-source
economics and business models.''

~fromUnderstand My Job, Please! by ESR

Many parts of his essay are *very* close to a (chapter of a) paper by ESR, Homesteading the Noosphere , which describes the hacker culture as a Gift economy (among many other interesting topics).

Is he trying to qualify for the job of ESR ?...(I think he is still far from the level...)

With Redhat 5.2, it must have taken me no more than ten minutes to figure out how to change the hostname (It's in /etc/sysconfig/network. You might also need to change /etc/hosts as well). Funny thing is, I didn't even know beforehand exactly where to look under /etc to change it. They still teach Unix newbies how to use grep, don't they?

Did leapfrog really meant to say that he took NINE DAYS to figure out how to change the hostname on Red Hat Linux? Sure the Redhat distribution may be a little different than the Slackware that he's used to (I've used both), but Lord help him if he ever has to use any other Unix than Linux, like AIX, HP-UX, or Solaris - all of which are but a few I've had to use in my line of work.

I just think people need to take a little more time to learn how to use any certain Linux distribution (be it Redhat, Debian, or whatever) before they start bashing it as a distribution for "clueless" Windows users. Clearly, leapfrog did not do that in the case of Redhat.

And BTW, guess who admits to using Redhat Linux on his own machine? Why none other than Linus Torvalds himself! Don't believe me? Read the answer to question 10 of Eric S. Raymond's FAQ on Linus. I think leapfrog may want to consider that fact before making statements that Redhat Linux is for clueless Windows users.

Linus Linus + Unix

He's the father of the kernel to the operations system we all know and love.

fool /n./

As used by hackers, specifically describes a person who habitually reasons from obviously or demonstrably incorrect premises and cannot be persuaded by evidence to do otherwise; it is not generally used in its other senses, i.e., to describe a person with a native incapacity to reason correctly, or a clown. Indeed, in hackish experience many fools are capable of reasoning all too effectively in executing their errors. See also cretin, loser, fool file, the.

~from the Jargon File, assembled by Eric Raymond

But the real reason for the re-labeling is a marketing one. We're trying to pitch our concept to the corporate world now. We have a winning product, but our positioning, in the past, has been awful. The term ``free software'' has a load of fatal baggage; to a businessperson, it's too redolent of fanaticism and flakiness and strident anti-commercialism.

Mainstream corporate CEOs and CTOs will never buy ``free software'', manifestos and clenched fists and all. But if we take the very same tradition, the same people, and the same free-software licenses and change the label to ``open source'' - that, they'll buy.

~from the Hacker's Case for Open Source

fool /n./

As used by hackers, specifically describes a person who habitually reasons from obviously or demonstrably incorrect premises and cannot be persuaded by evidence to do otherwise; it is not generally used in its other senses, i.e., to describe a person with a native incapacity to reason correctly, or a clown. Indeed, in hackish experience many fools are capable of reasoning all too effectively in executing their errors. See also cretin, loser, fool file, the.

~from the Jargon File, assembled by Eric Raymond

But the real reason for the re-labeling is a marketing one. We're trying to pitch our concept to the corporate world now. We have a winning product, but our positioning, in the past, has been awful. The term ``free software'' has a load of fatal baggage; to a businessperson, it's too redolent of fanaticism and flakiness and strident anti-commercialism.

Mainstream corporate CEOs and CTOs will never buy ``free software'', manifestos and clenched fists and all. But if we take the very same tradition, the same people, and the same free-software licenses and change the label to ``open source'' - that, they'll buy.

~from the Hacker's Case for Open Source

fool /n./

As used by hackers, specifically describes a person who habitually reasons from obviously or demonstrably incorrect premises and cannot be persuaded by evidence to do otherwise; it is not generally used in its other senses, i.e., to describe a person with a native incapacity to reason correctly, or a clown. Indeed, in hackish experience many fools are capable of reasoning all too effectively in executing their errors. See also cretin, loser, fool file, the.

~from the Jargon File, assembled by Eric Raymond

But the real reason for the re-labeling is a marketing one. We're trying to pitch our concept to the corporate world now. We have a winning product, but our positioning, in the past, has been awful. The term ``free software'' has a load of fatal baggage; to a businessperson, it's too redolent of fanaticism and flakiness and strident anti-commercialism.

Mainstream corporate CEOs and CTOs will never buy ``free software'', manifestos and clenched fists and all. But if we take the very same tradition, the same people, and the same free-software licenses and change the label to ``open source'' - that, they'll buy.

~from the Hacker's Case for Open Source

fool /n./

As used by hackers, specifically describes a person who habitually reasons from obviously or demonstrably incorrect premises and cannot be persuaded by evidence to do otherwise; it is not generally used in its other senses, i.e., to describe a person with a native incapacity to reason correctly, or a clown. Indeed, in hackish experience many fools are capable of reasoning all too effectively in executing their errors. See also cretin, loser, fool file, the.

~from the Jargon File, assembled by Eric Raymond

But the real reason for the re-labeling is a marketing one. We're trying to pitch our concept to the corporate world now. We have a winning product, but our positioning, in the past, has been awful. The term ``free software'' has a load of fatal baggage; to a businessperson, it's too redolent of fanaticism and flakiness and strident anti-commercialism.

Mainstream corporate CEOs and CTOs will never buy ``free software'', manifestos and clenched fists and all. But if we take the very same tradition, the same people, and the same free-software licenses and change the label to ``open source'' - that, they'll buy.

~from the Hacker's Case for Open Source

cDc was created in 1984. Thus they fall in the following definition:
"From the late 1980s onward, a flourishing culture of local, MS-DOS-based bulletin boards has been developing separately from Internet hackerdom. The BBS culture has, as its seamy underside, a stratum of `pirate boards' inhabited by crackers, phone phreaks, and warez d00dz. These people (mostly teenagers running PC-clones from their bedrooms) have developed their own characteristic jargon, heavily influenced by skateboard lingo and underground-rock slang.
Though crackers often call themselves `hackers', they aren't (they typically have neither significant programming ability, nor Internet expertise, nor experience with UNIX or other true multi-user systems). Their vocabulary has little overlap with hackerdom's. Nevertheless, this lexicon covers much of it so the reader will be able to understand what goes by on bulletin-board systems."

While the Jargon File, thus the (real) hacker culture largely predates them:

"The original Jargon File was a collection of hacker jargon from technical cultures including the MIT AI Lab, the Stanford AI lab (SAIL), and others of the old ARPANET AI/LISP/PDP-10 communities including Bolt, Beranek and Newman (BBN), Carnegie-Mellon University (CMU), and Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI).
The Jargon File (hereafter referred to as `jargon-1' or `the File') was begun by Raphael Finkel at Stanford in 1975. From this time until the plug was finally pulled on the SAIL computer in 1991, the File was named AIWORD.RF[UP,DOC] there. Some terms in it date back considerably earlier ( frob and some senses of moby, for instance, go back to the Tech Model Railroad Club at MIT and are believed to date at least back to the early 1960s). The revisions of jargon-1 were all unnumbered and may be collectively considered `Version 1"

cDc was created in 1984. Thus they fall in the following definition:
"From the late 1980s onward, a flourishing culture of local, MS-DOS-based bulletin boards has been developing separately from Internet hackerdom. The BBS culture has, as its seamy underside, a stratum of `pirate boards' inhabited by crackers, phone phreaks, and warez d00dz. These people (mostly teenagers running PC-clones from their bedrooms) have developed their own characteristic jargon, heavily influenced by skateboard lingo and underground-rock slang.
Though crackers often call themselves `hackers', they aren't (they typically have neither significant programming ability, nor Internet expertise, nor experience with UNIX or other true multi-user systems). Their vocabulary has little overlap with hackerdom's. Nevertheless, this lexicon covers much of it so the reader will be able to understand what goes by on bulletin-board systems."

While the Jargon File, thus the (real) hacker culture largely predates them:

"The original Jargon File was a collection of hacker jargon from technical cultures including the MIT AI Lab, the Stanford AI lab (SAIL), and others of the old ARPANET AI/LISP/PDP-10 communities including Bolt, Beranek and Newman (BBN), Carnegie-Mellon University (CMU), and Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI).
The Jargon File (hereafter referred to as `jargon-1' or `the File') was begun by Raphael Finkel at Stanford in 1975. From this time until the plug was finally pulled on the SAIL computer in 1991, the File was named AIWORD.RF[UP,DOC] there. Some terms in it date back considerably earlier ( frob and some senses of moby, for instance, go back to the Tech Model Railroad Club at MIT and are believed to date at least back to the early 1960s). The revisions of jargon-1 were all unnumbered and may be collectively considered `Version 1"

You mean Halloween Nightmare?

OTOH, I can see three problems with trying to revive "worm" in this sense. It already has an established meaning in computing jargon, so adding another could lead to confusion. It didn't stick the first time. And it sounds perhaps a bit too perjorative for use except specifically as an insult. But even if "worm" doesn't take the place of "cracker" or stop the misuse of "hacker", I reckon it could complement them nicely.

And how about "maggot" as the emphatic form?

I'm waiting for the day when an individual open-source project has the kind of coordinated consistency, elegance, and simplicity of Apple's platform efforts.

To paraphrase what ESR said in his famous document, both central and distributed development models have their strength. And Apple has developed a cleaner and more elegant integrated solution, from the non-expert end-user's point of view, than any open source effort to date.

I use OpenBSD daily, and sometimes Linux (SPARC, MIPS, & PPC), and see the advantages of their openness. But these things are still a chaotic hodge-podge of inconsistency. Lots of people have contributed lots of good ideas to these projects. But each different idea from each separate contributor simply adds to the inconsistency and complexity of the entire platform.

In other words, Apple is trying to harness the advantages of open-source efforts, and still maintain the advantages of a clear consistent vision that has been the source of their strength in the past. Not only has this not been done before, but it is a very difficult compromise to get right.

RMS makes some valid and thoughtful comments from his point of view. I think in the long run, if we give them the chance, Apple and other proprietary industry players will get there. Somebody has to be the extremist in order to make the rest of us look more moderate; RMS does a great job of that. I think the tone of the comments from the major players mentioned in other posts (RMS, ESR, BP, etc.) have been thoughtful and responsible.

Apple is taking a radical risk from their, and from their shareholder's, point of view. You accuse them of attempting to make ...a quick buck off the naivete of a bunch of geeks. Though I don't believe that this is their intent, only time will tell.

As for whether you or anyone else contributes to Darwin, it all depends on whether you value the unique elegance of consistency and integration that Apple's design philosophy represents. I'm convinced there is enough of a community of people who do to make contributing to code licensed under APSL worthwhile.

Now, I'm not in the industry, but the temp stuff is becoming a problem (there have been meetings and such for unionizing around town, I live in Oly, WA, about 60 mi south of Redmond).

This stuff does get thought about. Go read some of ESR's stuff on the matter. It is actually really good.

ph43drus

Retrocomputing Museum

KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE AND WRITE ACCORDINGLY

Whilst I do enjoy articles on something other than kernel update 2.2.3ac93, Katz and this new guy don't seem to be able to apply this rule. In my experience, the hacker audience has the following characteristics:

1. They prefer their information dense-packed, but expressed explicitly and with clarity.
2. They are interested in philosophical discussion, but mostly don't have a background in it and are deeply sceptical of the "postmodernist/structuralist crap" coming out of Gen X writers and their own dippy liberal-arts acquaintances :), which often tends to go against charactistic 1, and
3. Have their own history and philosophy, and aren't terribly impressed with anyone who tries to preach to them without bothering to gain an understanding of it.

So, IMHO, if the less-technical writers who want to write here would like a more friendly response, they should take steps to address these points. As a starting point and an excellent introduction to hacker culture (though not, of course, a be-all and end-all), why don't they have a look at The Jargon File??

I don't myself feel that would be an entirely fair judgement on ESR or the Jargon File, but I think it's plausible enough to deserve a reply. Would Mr. Raymond himself like to take this opportunity to answer this criticism?

I don't myself feel that would be an entirely fair judgement on ESR or the Jargon File, but I think it's plausible enough to deserve a reply. Would Mr. Raymond himself like to take this opportunity to answer this criticism?

I don't myself feel that would be an entirely fair judgement on ESR or the Jargon File, but I think it's plausible enough to deserve a reply. Would Mr. Raymond himself like to take this opportunity to answer this criticism?

I don't myself feel that would be an entirely fair judgement on ESR or the Jargon File, but I think it's plausible enough to deserve a reply. Would Mr. Raymond himself like to take this opportunity to answer this criticism?

I don't myself feel that would be an entirely fair judgement on ESR or the Jargon File, but I think it's plausible enough to deserve a reply. Would Mr. Raymond himself like to take this opportunity to answer this criticism?

I don't myself feel that would be an entirely fair judgement on ESR or the Jargon File, but I think it's plausible enough to deserve a reply. Would Mr. Raymond himself like to take this opportunity to answer this criticism?

I don't myself feel that would be an entirely fair judgement on ESR or the Jargon File, but I think it's plausible enough to deserve a reply. Would Mr. Raymond himself like to take this opportunity to answer this criticism?

I don't myself feel that would be an entirely fair judgement on ESR or the Jargon File, but I think it's plausible enough to deserve a reply. Would Mr. Raymond himself like to take this opportunity to answer this criticism?

He also once wrote a horrendous little childish play on the Halloween thing, with him as a character, also put up on the OSI site.

Apparently public pressure has made him delete both of these. The only controversial thing left for people to see is only his Gun nut page.

Hehehe. I guess this will start Yet Another Gun Control Flamewar.

---