Slashdot Mirror
Preliminary Injunction Against SuSE
Random Walk writes "The German news site Heise Online reports that on behalf of an anonymous client,
a lawyer has won a
preliminary injunction (German only)
against the Linux distributor SuSE.
The injunction forbids the delivery of SuSE CDs as long as they contain some program name that apparently violates a registered
trademark. No more details available, but SuSE seems to be in negotiations with the other party." Head over to the fish for translation.
Let's have a close look at the costs involved when running a Linux system.
An important factor in Linux' cost is its maintenance. Linux requires a *lot* of maintenance, work doable only by the relatively few high-paid Linux administrators that put themselves - of course willingly - at a great place in the market. Linux seems to be needing maintenance continuously, to keep it from breaking down.
Add to this the cost of loss of data. Linux' native file system, EXT2FS, is known to lose data like a firehose spouts water when the file system isn't unmounted properly. Other unix file systems are much more tolerant towards unexpected crashes. An example is the FreeBSD file system, which with soft updates enabled, performance-wise blows EXT2FS out of the water, and doesn't have the negative drawback of extreme data loss in case of a system breakdown.
According to Linux advocates, an alternative to EXT2FS would be ReiserFS. Unfortunately, ReiserFS is still in beta stage. This means it is not intended for production use (although according to many Linux advocates this shouldn't be a problem, which makes me wonder how (little) valuable they find your data).
The other proposed 'solution', EXT3FS, is nothing more than an ugly hack to put journaling into the file system. All the drawbacks of the ancient EXT2FS file system remain in EXT3FS, for the sake of 'forward- and backward compatibility'. This is interesting, considering that the DOS heritage in the Windows 9x/ME series was considered a very bad thing by the Linux community, even though it provided what could be called one of the best examples of compatibility, ever. When it's about Linux, compatibility constraints don't seem to be that much of a problem for Linux advocates.
Back to Linux' cost. Factor in also the fact that crashes happen much more often on Linux than on other unices. On other unices, crashes usually are caused by external sources like power outages. Crashes in Linux are a regular thing, and nobody seems to know what causes them, internally. Linux advocates try to hide this fact by denying crashes ever happen. Instead, they have frequent "hardware problems".
The steep learning curve compared to about any other operating system out there is a major factor in Linux' cost. The system is a mix of features from all kinds of unices, but not one of them is implemented right. A Linux user has to live with badly coded tools which have low performance, mangle data seemingly at random and are not in line with their specification. On top of that a lot of them spit out the most childish and unprofessional messages, indicating that they were created by 14-year olds with too much time, no talent and a bad attitude.
I could go on and on and on, but the conclusion is clear. Linux is not an option for any one who seeks a professional OS with high performance, scalability, stability, adherence to standards, etc.
and it's hillareous. especially the bit at the end where you say:
1 4 6 3 2 3 2 1 indeed!
You are a true genius!
You are an outcast of the troll group, fuck off.
knowing the stupidity of /. trolls, you must have
hand typed that.
"Happy Troll Tuesday, everybody!
This is the time on Sprockets when we troll slashdot.
Would you like to touch my monkey?"
Please stop doing that.
You're interfering with my trolling.
Thank you.
Can you imagin a bewulf culster of those?
Why is six scared?
Because seven eight nine!!!!
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA I crack me up!
Klink: Ahhh! General Berkhalter, what a pleasant surprise.
Berkhalter: Klink, shut up.
Hockstetter: Vat is this man doink here?
Hogan: Gee Colonel Klink, could we do a magic show next to the building containing the new secret V2 rocket?
The Associated Press is reporting that Dave Thomas, from the Wendy's comercials is dead at 69. Yahoo has a story here.
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20020108/ts/obit_t homas_8.html
last updated 9.9.99 by CmdrTaco
last summarised 8.Jan.2002 by VA Software
This document will attempt to explain the moderation system that lies underneath Slashdot's vast comment section. It will try to explain some of the history of the system, as well as how it works (or doesn't work) from both the perspective of the user, and the moderator. It is always in flux.
- Why
- Goals
- History
- Before Moderation
- Hand Picked Few
- 400 Lucky Winners
- Today: Most Anyone
- Who
- How
- FAQ
- I just got moderator access, what do I do?
- Why can't I suddenly moderate any more?
- I found a comment that was unfairly moderated!
- Is this censorship?
- What is a Good Comment? A Bad Comment?
- What is "Karma"?
- 3 Days Is Not Enough Time To Moderate!
- If I Post in a Discussion I moderated, Why Don't I get My
Points Back?
- How can I improve my Karma?
- Ideas for the Future
Why?The moderation system is designed to sort the gems and the crap from the steady stream of information that flows through the pipe. And wherever possible, it tries to make the readers of the site take on the responsibility.
Goals
- Promote Quality, Discourage Crap
- Make Slashdot as readable as possible for as many people as
possible.
- Do not require a huge amount of time from any single
moderator.
- Do not allow a single moderator a 'reign of terror'
HistoryBefore Moderation
Hand Picked Few
400 Lucky Winners
Today: Most Anyone
Who
How
When a moderator is given access, they are given a number of points of influence to play with. Each comment they moderate deducts a point. When they run out of points, they are done serving until next time it is their turn.
Moderation takes place by selecting an adjective from a drop down list that appears next to comments. Descriptive words like 'Flamebait' or 'Informative'. Bad words will reduce the comments score by a single point, good words increase a comments score by a single point. All comments are scored on an absolute scale from -1 to 5. Logged in users start at 1 (although this can vary from 0 to 2 based on their overall contribution to discussions) and anonymous users start at 0.
Moderators can not participate in the same discussion as both a moderator and a poster. This is to prevent abuses, and while it is one of the more controversial aspects of the system, I'm sticking to it. There are enough lurkers that moderate, that if you want to post, feel free.
Moderation points expire after 3 days if they are left unused. You then go back into the pool and might someday be given access again.
Concentrate more on promoting than on demoting. The real goal here is to find the juicy good stuff and let others read it. Do not promote personal agendas. Do not let your opinions factor in. Try to be impartial about this. Simply disagreeing with a comment is not a valid reason to mark it down. Likewise, agreeing with a comment is not a valid reason to mark it up. The goal here is to share ideas. To sift through the haystack and find needles. And to keep the children who like to spam Slashdot in check.
FAQ
I just got moderator access, what do I do?
The fact that you are reading this document proves that you are already on the right track.
Why can't I suddenly moderate any more?
Moderator access only lasts 3 days.
You can't moderate and post in the same discussion.
Do you still have any moderator points left? You only got 5...
If you unfairly moderate a comment, you might have your access revoked, although this is almost never the reason people lose access.
I found a comment that was unfairly moderated!
Lemme know and I'll look at it. Sometimes I might agree and revoke access to a moderator. Usually I disagree and let it go. Its difficult to be the judge on this stuff since it is so subjective.
Is this censorship?
We're not technically deleting anything. In fact "We" technically aren't really doing much at all. The masses are doing this for themselves (in theory anyway). And you are always given the option of clicking the threshold control over to '-1' and reading everything uncut, so I really have a hard time saying this truly is censorship. But if you really want to call it that, I can't really argue. We're trying to make as many people happy as possible here- if you don't like something, you can probably change it in the user preferences to more suit your tastes anyway.
What is a Good Comment? A Bad Comment?
Good Comments are insightful. You read them and are better off having read them. They add new information to a discussion. They are clear, hopefully well written, or maybe amusing. These are the gems we're looking for, and they deserve to be promoted.
Average Comments might be slightly offtopic, but still might be worth reading. They might be redundant. They might be a 'Me Too' article. They might say something painfully obvious. They don't detract from the discussion, but they don't necessarily significantly add to it. They are the comments that require the most attention from the moderators, and they also represent the bulk of the comments. (Score: 0-1)
Bad Comments are flamebait. Bad comments have nothing to do with the article they are attached to. They call someone names. They ridicule someone for having a different opinion without backing it up with anything more tangible than strong words. Bad comments are repeats of something said 15 times already making it quite apparent that the writer didn't read the previous comments. They use foul language. They are hard to read or just don't make any sense. They detract from the article they are attached to.
What is Karma?
3 Days Is Not Long Enough To Moderate!
On the contrary, I think its to long, although maybe I should change it to like "24 hours after you first are informed that you have moderator access". My reasoning is pretty simple: I don't want people to stockpile their points. I want people to use them or lose them. Otherwise people will hold on to their X points until a story comes on that they have a strong opinion in, and they will be tempted to moderate the discussion so as to sway things "their way". By expiring points quickly, moderators are encouraged to use them. Sometimes their points might expire unused, but thats ok: the system will just give points to someone else. r
Why Don't I get my points back after I post in a discussion I moderated?
How can I improve my Karma?
Ideas for the Future
This is a system in development.
---
http://slashdot.org/moderation.shtml
Indeed, the "Activation follows mouse (X-Mouse)" and "Autoraise when activating" options in Tweak UI are quite nice, but sadly some apps don't seem to play nice.
Visio for example seems to raise itself when activated even if you have it disabled in Tweak UI.
In Opera the auto-complete popup from the url bar seems to be a seperate window. So if you click in the url bar and happen to leave the mouse where the url popup will appear and start typing the popup appears and the Opera window deactivates and all your typing is for nothing.
Still, it's better than nothing.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park