Slashdot Mirror
Slashback: Buzzwords, Fruit, DIY
How soon is now? Unlike a lot of cool-sounding soon-to-be-released, wouldn't-it-be-cool promiseware, it's interesting to see hardware that actually makes it to market before its underlying idea is doomed by advances sweeping past. Larry Ellison's $199 Linux box mentioned on Slashdot a while back appears to have reached that point. The NIC Web site has changed, and no longer is the only way to order one donating it to an underserved school.
Why don't you find out for yourself? jesser writes "Many slashdotters asked on the lock-in attack story whether/when mozilla would be safe from this type of attack. Here are some links to bugzilla bug entries in case any slashdotters would like to work on making mozilla more secure:
- bug 29346: Prevent repeating pop-up windows
- bug 33448: disable 'new window' when close box clicked
- bug 22049: javascript alert should not put up extermely modal dialog"
You've got everything now. Patrick Mullen writes "I just finished my review of XFree86 4.0.1. I've had a lot of requests to see a feature on this when it hit (apparently they liked the last article), and here it is. There's benchmarks, overview of the bug fixes, and new features. In addition to the review, I've also got the new NVidia 0.9-4 drivers which allow NVidia's line of cards to function correctly on XFree86 4.0.1 available on the website-and these are not available on even NVidia's website at the time."
That joke isn't funny any more. A number of readers wrote in with harsh words about the report that Apple forced the removal of rumors regarding an alleged next-generation translucent-cased machine.
Kaufmann, for instance, wrote: "Remember the whole story about MOSR's article regarding the new generation of Macs getting pulled at the request of Apple Legal? Well, an Alan Smithee is claiming that it's a hoax. To prove it, he's put up the very same article on the Personal Homepage service provided by Apple at Mac.com. Further investigation seems necessary." Note: not that putting an article on Apple's Personal Homepage service proves it's worthiness, but it does beg the question of Apple being quick to pounce on it. "Alan Smithee" doesn't exactly inspire confidence either, though -- that's the pseudonym directors traditionally use to distance themselves from films they consider too bad to bear their real names;)
Similarly, an unnamed correpsondent had this to say: "The Apple cube that has been talked about the past few days is a total hoax. Some guy sent an email with fake specs to MacOSRumors and they posted it. Kind of makes one question the credibility of Ryan Meader saying that Apple forced him to take it down. Anyways you can see the fake email at: [this link]."
Stop me if you think you've heard this one before ... QBasic_Dude writes "Richard Stallman wrote about the Problems of the Plan Nine License. Technocrat has a discussion about this, and so does Advogato."
Richard cites what he considers odious provisions in the putatively "open source" Plan 9 license (like this one: "You agree to provide the Original Contributor, at its request, with a copy of the complete Source Code version, Object Code version and related documentation for Modifications created or contributed to by You if used for any purpose.") and responds with typical Stallman pithiness, "This prohibits modifications for private use, denying the users a basic right." There's much more to read there, and worth your time. (As are the discussions at Advogato and Technocrat!)
> Shall we start the old rumor that RedHat 7 will have XFree86-4, kernel 2.4, KDE 2.0 and Gnome 1.2 again?
Some of that has already made it into Red Hat's "Rawhide" release, which is a sort of beta for their forthcoming versions. They put a new one out at rawhide.redhat.com about once a month.
ps - No, it's not slashdotted. It's just a seriously overloaded server. Try it at an off hour if you want to sneak a peak or download it.
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Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
only if you redistribute a copy of program are you required to give the modified version. this would onyl apply to binary only programs. You aren't redistributing the program when someone goes to your site. You are giving them the output of the program. that is different. You are entitled to keep your changes secret.
That is all,
Joseph Nicholas Yarbrough
Attorney at Heart
Stupid people do stupid things... Smart people outsmart each other... --System of a Down
You are not violating the GPL.
What you are doing is not forbidden by the GPL. The GPl just says that if you wanted to distribute it, the source code would have to be included (its quite hard to distribute php w/o the source). So as long as you dont distribute it, the GPL does not applies to you.
What you are doing is exactly the right that RMS is trying to protect and that the Plan9 License violates.
You agree to provide the Original Contributor, at its request, with a copy of the complete Source Code version, Object Code version and related documentation for Modifications created or contributed to by You if used for any purpose.
... and so on?
I thought that the GPL essentially demanded this too, except that 'Original Contributor' is replaced with 'Anyone you distribute to'. Granted, if you never distribute, under the GPL you don't have to release source (if I'm correct), but this still seems relatively reasonable.
and may, at Your option, include a reasonable charge for the cost of any media.
So he shut out commercial distros from making money from selling CDs. But they can still provide support, and make money that way, right? Again, I don't see a huge problem here.
Distribution of Licensed Software to third parties pursuant to this grant shall be subject to the same terms and conditions as set forth in this Agreement,
How is this different than 'your modified versions must be distributed under the GPL also,' which if IIRC is one of the GPL's conditions?
Interesting, Microsoft refers to bugs as features, and Mozilla refers to features as bugs.
Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose
I mean, MOSR never had a real reputation to begin with. They knew nobody would really believe that ridiculous story. So they decided to blow it up, and make a nice mess while they're at it.
After this whole embarassing mess, they remain an untrustworthy rumour site - but now they're an untrustworthy site that's on Slashdot twice, an untrustworthy site that's got a lot of people talking about it, an untrustworthy site with a shitload of page views.
Whether it's true or not, Ryan Meader can only win from this. Evidently, he did.
(Makes me wonder about the Alan Smithee who allegedly denounced him... if Ryan can make up the story, he can sure call himself a liar and put it up for display on homepage.mac.com.)
To the editors: your English is as bad as your Perl. Please go back to grade school.
Everyone is out to make a buck, don't deny it. People don't mind making some extra money. Why does slashdot publish articles by john katz and take things out of context? To generate banner hits. Check out the slogan on andover.net and then check my .sig line.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
They told you to stop? Can I see some of those bug numbers? That's crazy.
(And I did put a but I think Mozilla is munging it to lt sp sl A gt
Joseph Elwell.
I think the poster means that if you alter gcc, compile a program with it, and distribute the binary of that program, you don't have to distribute your modified version of gcc, or the source of the program you compiled using your modified gcc.
tangent - art and creation are a higher purpose
postmoderncore - art and creation are a higher purpose
Great message Kaufmann! Nailed it right on the head.
I have too complained often on Slashdot regarding the lack of credibility of Ryan Meader. However, it appears the editors of Slashdot have not gotten the message, at least until now. I can understand getting scammed by a potato powered Linux server once but not by Ryan Meader four times. I am always amazed by the 'credibility' placed on MacOSRumors. I guess its like P.T. Barnum said, "A sucker born every minute!".
Ryan Meader's reporting can be best described as FUD and harmful to consumers of Apple products. His unfounded rumor mongering has negatively affected the sales of Apple products. My main Macintosh vendor rep once complained to me regarding lost PowerBook G3 (Lombard) sales because of persistent rumors of a new model (Pismo) appearing in the short term. Those (completely unfounded) rumors were fostered by MacOSRumors. His information turned out to be false (a shocker!).
I buy six figure amounts of computer hardware a year for myself and company -- mainly Mac. Because of Mr. Ryan's reporting, I passed along that fact to the main sponsor, Club Mac, explaining that the cost of advertising on MacOSRumors is much more than the rates charged by Mr. Meader. They were losing access to a budget I control and probably more than just mine. However, I noticed that Ryan Meader has just 'signed up' PayPal as a new sponsor. I guess this, more than anything, is signaling the end of MacOSRumors. Rest in pieces!
P.S. If you visit MacOSRumors now, you will find that all traces of the 'G4 Cube' story and the 'Take down the story' e-mail from the lawyer at Apple named 'Sue' have been erased. I wonder if Apple has any legal recourse for the fake e-mail. It would be wonderful to see the Apple lawyers (the real kind) go after a worthwhile target for a change!
Causing a binary to be run (eg. by loading a PHP page) does not constitute distribution of the binary. The GPL doesn't cover the use of programs, only their distribution.
The key point is that remotely running a program is NOT the same as distributing it. The difference is that if I have a copy of a program that was distributed, I can run it whenever and however I like, but if I'm running a program on your server, you are free to take it down, or change it, or whatever you like, whenever you like. That's fine, because it's your server I'm using to run it. The problem is when programs are distributed, but restricted (ie. closed-source).
Such a system would prevent you from allowing others to remotely run your privately modified program, which has not been distributed. This would be a serious restriction on your rights. Since the others are using your server to run your program, they shouldn't expect the same rights as they would get if you gave them a copy of the binary to run on their own machine.
Further, when you run such a binary, all that is distributed to you is its output, and the GPL explicitly does not cover the output of GPL'd programs. Don't confuse data and algorithm - I don't see why obtaining some output should give you any right to see how it was made, under the GPL or any other system.
It might not be ridiculous, but it's close.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur.
X-Window 3.6+
Are they just confused, or are they spewing misinformation? Here's another example: What resolutions does the video support?
The NIC displays at 800 x 600 resolution with 65,536 million colors.
Wow, 65,536 million colors... that's an amazing color depth!
WWJD -- What Would Jimi Do?
I am quite civilized, and I should be brought a beer immediately. -- Bruce Sterling
It looks like the 3D acceleration support is expanding. For instance, 4.0 accelerated the G400 but not the G200, but now the G200 has been added to the list.
For the current status of your favorite 3D acceleration card, visit the DRI User's Guide at SourceForge.
Caveat: Before you rush out to upgrade, notice that some of the cards require recent 2.3.* kernels. (Of course, kernel testers are needed too!)
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Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
> I'm tired of duel booting
Is that where you try to boot to two OSes on the same machine at the same time, and the one quickest at the draw wins?
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Could it be because *ahem* Slashdot is a corporate site?
Rob and the gang may still run the editorial aspect of it (for now, at least), but otherwise, Slashdot is submitted to the interests of Andover.net/VA Linux, a BigCorp. And, like all BigCorps, it's got one goal in life: appease its shareholders. Which traditionally translates to "make mo' money".
And this is just a wild guess, but I figure, from all the banner ad networks, Doubleclick is the one that pays the best.
So Slashdot's party line may be "personal privacy forever"... until, that is, the bottom line comes into question. Then, Doubleclick's privacy policies suddenly become wholly irrelevant compared to the fact, pure and simple, that it's the best, quickest way to *ahem* appease the shareholders.
(Sorry for the rant.)
To the editors: your English is as bad as your Perl. Please go back to grade school.
Since installing the package and configuring it, I have already had visitors ask me for the source, which I gladly provided of course. However, I provided them the source to the original package, --not-- the altered PHP scripts (which incidentally contain sensitive information such as my MySQL database name and password.)
My main concern is this; if I use this software to create a web site, and it is GPL'ed, I do not want to redistribute the exact files that are in my HTML directory, for obvious reasons. Am I in violation of the GPL, if someone decides they want to enforce it? Are they subsequently entitled to a tarball of my web site root directory? If they are, there is no possible way I can continue using this package, and therefore could not continue to support Open Source for this project. :-(
I have already find a few minor bugs and have been submitting them back into the CVS tree, so I'm still contributing to the development of the package; however, some people are now talking about the GPL being modified to encompass web sites being made with Open Source tools. If the GPL is changed to encompass web sites as opposed to binary distributions, could mean some serious problems for me.
Any advice that anyone has about this matter would definitely be something I would appreciate. Thanks!
Free music from Jack Merlot.
I'm betting this answers your question. (Perhaps this is one of the side-affects that doomsayers warned about when Andover bought slashdot.)
Look at the colour depth of the video card on that NIC:
What resolutions does the video support?
The NIC displays at 800 x 600 resolution with 65,536 million colors.
Verbatim from their FAQ.
With the cheapness of video cards these days, I would have thought it was difficult to find a 1Mb card...
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Consultancy: If you're not part of the solution, there's money to be made in prolonging the problem
I personally believe that the best way to help mozilla is to use it daily. Report bugs when you can, and try hanging out in #mozillazine on irc.mozilla.org on a regular basis. #mozillazine is a really good way to get started, although if you want to code #mozilla can be more educational.
Joseph Elwell.
Slashdot does NOT use doubleclick.net for any of its ads. Apparently you are unware that there are other ways to put images on pages for revenue -- ways that don't involve leaving cookies or tracking you as you surf. f orge</a>. As a matter of fact, /. only sets one cookie, which contains your login information.
Friends don't let friends misuse the subjunctive.
Hm... I just saw this add on slashdot... looks an awfull lot like doubleclick to me.
n er2.gif
I needed to reload the page ~10 times to see it.
Slashdot also seems to use ads from akaimatech.
http://m.doubleclick.net/viewad/448249-suse_ban
Slashdot does NOT use doubleclick.net for any of its ads. Apparently you are unware that there are other ways to put images on pages for revenue -- ways that don't involve leaving cookies or tracking you as you surf. This article explains AndOver.Net's ad delivery system, which incidentally is an open-source project hosted on Sourceforge. As a matter of fact, /. only sets one cookie, which contains your login information.
Friends don't let friends misuse the subjunctive.