Linux for Home Electronics

ives writes "Matsushita (Panasonic) and Sony are going to develop a Linux platform for digital home electronic devices. The nice thing is that they want to release the jointly developed source code for this project under the GPL. The press release mentions open source, the GPL and even Richard Stallman :^)."

Comments

Good

[horcy]

Now i can finally run linux on my electrical toothbrush... w00t

Re:Good

[*xpenguin*]

Now i can finally run linux on my electrical toothbrush... w00t

And you'll never get cavities again?

Re:Good

[Greedo]

There is a joke about your tooth being rooted in here, I'm sure ...

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone notice that the article forwards to some message about needing Netscape or IE if you use a different browser (Opera)?

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

Act now and get a toothbrush docking station to backup your teeth!

Sounds nice

[Anonymous Coward]

... just wanted to fill all the unused comment space...

GPL, Open Source, Stallman?

[Amomynous Coward]

Then it must be good, right?

IN SADDAM'S IRAQ

[Hot Grit Work]

Unemployed Al Qaeda hide all your secret message in YOU!

Firstly, the fundamental building blocks of bowling, Natalie Portman's Hot
Grit Beowolf Clusters, we didn't invent, we inheirited. No matter how
absurd they may be, they are the trools we have been trained to use, and
the materials we have to woot with. They our are nouns, our verbs, and our
grammer. When we embrace and extend, we honor and respect those that came
before us -- Anonymous Coward or Kathleen Malda, they paid with their
karma so we can still frist post (Score: -1, Troll). That memes freedom of
speach, as in the freedom to beer farm.

Secondly, ??? Modding down any sufficiently embedded troll
is indistinguishable from censorship ???

Thirdsly, What does it PROFIT!!! a man, if he gains maximum karma, but
loose his 0wnz troll?

Slashdotting the terrorist list? Oh you better believe that's a paddling!

Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

While the Sony's have lived in the modern world for awhile, and have gotten it, as well as being on both sides of it, Matsuhita electric is perhaps the most traditional and conservitive of Japanese companies. I have known these people (Matsushita) for much of my life, from some of their board members down. This is an organization so steeped in it's own traditions and dogma (yes, they really do have a "250 year" business plan, and never make fun of the founders light bulb socket :), with engineering departments so conservitivily organized, that for them to support open development of GPL software is really much like the Pope encouraging contraction!

Re:Wow

[krisguy]

It makes good business sense to use GPL-ed software when you want to devise a new product.

1. Low cost or no cost.
2. If you give geeks a chance to play with it, they can start to tell regular people how it works, why they should get it, etc.
3. Since most "regular" people don't care or don't want to know why it works the way it does, if the people who care why it works (geeks), show others that it just works, others will be inclined to buy that product.

The moral: Most people will buy something if it simply works. Sony and Panasonic are letting us make sure it works before they mass-release.

Great strategy for the companies and I get to fullfil my hacker tendancies!

Re:Wow

[FIT_Entry1]

>> ..is really much like the Pope encouraging contraction!

Thank God I'm a Baptist! I could never give up my doesn't, can't, and you're.

Re:Wow

[mr_z_beeblebrox]

you're the man! (note the protestantism)

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

What does being a Baptist have to do with writing gramatically correct English?

If anything, shouldn't it be Anglican? :-)

Re:Wow

[RealAlaskan]

... that for them to support open development of GPL software is really much like the Pope encouraging contraction!

Well, I hate to rain on your parade, but given the Catholic Church's position on contraception, and the fact that ``contraction''s are what force the baby out, I'd say that the Pope does encourage contraction!

Re:Wow

[jamesangel]

much like the Pope encouraging contraction!

Since he is against contraception, doesn't the Pope already encourage contractions?

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the new replacement for the rhythm method. You just leave out the orgasm and go right to the guilt.

Re:Wow

[m_cuffa]

You mean "contraception", right? I'm not so sure the Pope loses sleep at night over whether the Expos and Twins will be losing their ballclubs... ;)

Re:Wow

[orthogonal]

...is really much like the Pope encouraging contraction!

Da' Pope don't support contraction!
An' don' you forget it!

Re:Wow

[eht]

Even better for business use is the new style BSD license as you aren't required to release source and you can actually make a profit off the software itself and not only sell support.

Re:Wow

[gregorio]

2. If you give geeks a chance to play with it, they can start to tell regular people how it works, why they should get it, etc.
3. Since most "regular" people don't care or don't want to know why it works the way it does, if the people who care why it works (geeks), show others that it just works, others will be inclined to buy that product.

Sorry but NO. They are not using GPL because they can get free help from geek people, they are doing that so they only have to focus on the underlying electronics.

BTW, that's were fight for in the market: Eletronics enginnering, who makes the cheaper decoding IC, who uses it, who haves the better design, etc. etc.

Re:Wow

[dolmen.fr]

Yes, but with the GPL Sony and Matsushita ensure that their concurrents will publish their improvements if they use the code.

This is why the GPL is better for business than the BSD license if your want to publish code that you own.

fp?

[Anonymous Coward]

damn 20 seconds!! WTF was up w/ comments earlier?

First, but what's the point..?

[Anonymous Coward]

...when the site is giving Error 500s and throwing you out of your login?

Re:First, but what's the point..?

[Anonymous Coward]

Try http://brak.slashdot.org/

I should really make a login and reap karma for this...

Whoa

[ThatKidYouDid]

Was Slashdot just Slashdotted? I never get First Post. There goes the neighborhood.

Re:Whoa

[Anonymous Coward]

I know. I have to use brak.slashdot.org to view the front page. Looks like a Dos?

First Post?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm, guess everyone's recovering from the Two Towers midnight showing.

Sony has a Linux PVR on the market in Japan.

[greensquare]

According to this yahoo article Sony/Panasonic already have a PVR device on the market in Japan that is using Linux called Cocoon.

It makes sense, cost, robustness, development time,....

And this way they don't support MS, who is their competitor.

Re:Sony has a Linux PVR on the market in Japan.

[TheEnglishPatient]

Yes we know 'cos we read this story on Slashdot
http://slashdot.org/articles/02/09/04/13 28209.shtm l?tid%129
Nick

Re:Sony has a Linux PVR on the market in Japan.

[imbezol]

Maybe Microsoft shouldn't have mowed Sony's grass with the X-Box? :)

Re:Sony has a Linux PVR on the market in Japan.

[caferace]

...Sony/Panasonic already have a PVR device on the market in Japan that is using Linux called Cocoon.

Which I'm guessing, is the outcome of what Sony licensed from TiVo?

Re:Sony has a Linux PVR on the market in Japan.

[Quikah]

Sony has had a Linux based PVR on the market in the US for the past 3 years or so.

The SVR 3000 is the current model.

Uses TiVo software.

GPL friendly corporations ???

[kedi]

Looks like some companies have finally accepeted that GPL is not hostile to property and profit.

Re:GPL friendly corporations ???

[Anonymous Coward]

Propaganda of this type has been popular only in the US. Read radical right wing Scotty, my favorite Linux hate speech.

Re:GPL friendly corporations ???

[Anonymous Coward]

I still don't understand why so many think it's so great that big corporations use stuff that ordinary people have done.

We are just free labour, what is so good about that. Nike use nearly free labour in pakistan, we are totally free labour.

Why wouldn't they think thats good? What would be better than free labour?

"Look! We get ripped off, thats great!"

Re:GPL friendly corporations ???

[Anonymous Coward]

Every Company in the market will also help to improve the system. It will have to have some system related engineers trained on Linux and so on. I am not against big companys because they give a boost to development. Although Japanese are bad programmers.

Re:GPL friendly corporations ???

[Patrick_Champion]

This McCollum guy is amazing from www.worldtribune.com. I consider myself to be mostly right wing. Heck some might even call me radical right wing for opposing things like abortion. But this guy would likely label me a communist. He should be hired by Microsoft, Disney, or RIAA. I'm glad at least that some corporate managers have clearer vision.

How do you reason with a guy like this? Tell him that current software patents would make writing a "Hello World" program illegal and by extension all software is illegally produced and all programmers are thieves - oh yes, and all companies that develop software are thieves? Has anyone had success in reasoning with similar people concerning software development and patent issues.

Re:GPL friendly corporations ???

[Chris Burke]

Duh, that's why it's good that Linux is under the GPL -- that way, any work that Sony does to improve it gets back to us. We benefit, they benefit... It's not always a zero-sum game, you know.

Re:GPL friendly corporations ???

[kedi]

Patrick_Champion wrote: "This McCollum guy ... How do you reason with a guy like this?"

I guess by encouraging Netscape, Sun, and Oracle to sue this guy for defamation, since he is almost calling them terrorists.

Quto from McCollum: "The Linux(TM) cult's newest jihad is to aid in the fight against Microsoft begun by their competitors Netscape, Sun, and Oracle along with over a dozen state attorney generals during their anti-trust litigation. The Linux(TM) cult, not unlike the global confederation of leftist zombies led by a few radicals bent on the destruction of the United States, is a global confederation of leftist zombies led by a few radicals bent on the destruction of Microsoft."

Re:GPL friendly corporations ???

[orthogonal]

Consider the Archos Jukebox, a hard-drive based MP3 player.

rockbox is a GPL'd firmware replacement for the Archos; reportedly the rockbox GUI is a considerable improvement on Archos's own GUI.

Since the Archos firmware isn't open-source, the rockbox developers had to extensively reverse engineer their own Jukeboxes to create the software.

Because the newest Archos models -- including the one I just bought -- are hardware incompatible with the older models, I can't use the rockbox software, and am stuck with a great piece of hardware with a tedious and annoying interface.

I know of several people who decided not to purchase Archos's lateset and greatest because rockbox won't run on it.

Had Archos made its firmware open source from the begining, they would now have more and happier purchasers of their hardware. And those purchasers would have a better product. Win-win, in other words.

All is not lost however: Archos has formally asked to include the rockbox software in one of their newest offerings; hopefully this will induce them to open out specifications on their other products as well.

Re:GPL friendly corporations ???

[byron150]

Thank you, sir, you have no idea how much you've improved my quality of life as it pertains to my stubborn assed archos.

Re:GPL friendly corporations ???

[Drasil]

This is, IMHO, the most potent piece of pro Linux propeganda I have seen in some time. I expect any remotly sane win-o-phile will wish to distance themselves from such a Rant, hopefully some will distance themselves right out of M$'s clutches.

Linux may have zealots but this guy seems like a genocidal stormtrooper by comparison.

This is A Good Thing

[swordboy]

OK,

Yesterday, I needed to do a side job for a friend and instead of running CAT5, I used some of the new powerline ethernet stuff. What has me impressed is that this stuff was *dead reliable* and quite compact for its first iteration. What happens when it shrinks and we see this stuff built into TVs and alarm clocks?

Aside from your toaster manufacturer snooping your toasting habbits, your alarm clock will be able to pull MP3s from the home server. Your TV will pull the funniest commercials (ala the late adcritic.com) from the Tivo ranking database. Create a standard for it all, and you've got some remarkable integration.

With this, it hopefully will not be called "DirectHOME" or something like that...

Re:This is A Good Thing

[skillet-thief]

No, it will be called either $HOME or ~/

Re:This is A Good Thing

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, you would have been off running Conduit with several Cat5E inside. Use 100BT, until 1GbT is needed. Switch up just what is needed. At a later time, it is very easy to switch to fiber. Now this friend will be adding devices that will later need updating for higher speed. s?he will be paying ~100/device.

Re:This is A Good Thing

[Tenebrious1]

Create a standard for it all, and you've got some remarkable integration.

But I don't want my toaster oven noticing that this is the third time this week I've had toast slathered with 1/4 stick of butter and two teaspoons of honey, double checking with the bathroom scale, collaborating with the fridge to lock me out, then instructing my tivo to stop recording the x-files and start recording all those home workout shows and exercise infomercials, then finally telling my puter not to let me log into /. until I do a few situps first.

Re:This is A Good Thing

[Gothmolly]

Is it really? It's just more moving parts, more electronics to break. Where is the real benefit, aside from the geek factor, to having your alarm clock play MP3s? It won't give you the weather... or do you pull a weather feed down from the Internet and text-to-speech it? There's something that does that already... called RADIO.
And who says I want ANY commercials on my TV?

Re:This is A Good Thing

[azure_blue]

So how good is the Netgear kit? I'm guessing it's half-duplex. And does it 'leak' - the spec says 'works across circuit breakers and phases', so can everybody in your friend's street see his data?

Re:This is A Good Thing

[ShavenYak]

That all sounds great and wonderful.

Unfortunately, the power lines in my house aren't even capable of sending the signals X-10 devices* use from outlet to outlet in the same room. I can't imagine getting MP3 files through them.

* I have X-10 home automation stuff that was made long before the current wave of spy cameras and pop-up ads.

Re:This is A Good Thing

[somekindofuniguy]

Yup, that's exactly what it means - I've been evaling similar equipment of late, and basically everything on the same transformer is one network. Also, high noise devices (like vacuum cleaners) dirty up the signal badly. Powerline Ethernet is really very similar to Wireless, security and reliability wise.

interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd pay some $'s for mp3 capable sony dvd/cd player with proper playlist support

and how about sony set-top box with dvb, dvd and mpeg4 support? *drool*

embedded /. server

[sofar]

apparently /. is now serving their content of one off these....

Home and Linux?

[pgregg]

Hmmm, nice moniker: HAL

Now we know whats going to happen when the kernel is in charge....

Cold down here.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hell really is freezing over. Please send us some hot coffee down here asap.

Re:Cold down here.

[Anonymous Coward]

There's no such place as hell. You must be in France.

Re:Cold down here.

[Anonymous Coward]

They're supposed have good wine in Hell? Either that's true, or France does not comply with minimal standards for Hell alternative status.

Re:Cold down here.

[Anonymous Coward]

If I spill one outside in the grass, how long does it take to reach you?

Hmm... I guess that cup of coffee actually has gone to hell instantaneously...

Together with that spot of grass it is.

How Slashdot goes against open source philosophies

[gazbo]

You may be unaware that Taco and Slashdot blatantly scoff in the face of some of the most sensible and just principles of the open source movement.

What, but I thought that Slashcode is GPLd?

Yes, this is true, however that is not what I am talking about. As an aside, it is worth mentioning that when having GPLd Slashcode, Taco is determined to get as much out of it as possible; rather than simply making the code available for all to use and modify for their own gains, Taco uses this solely to get free labour. Anyone who has submitted a valid bug report and received the Taco Response(tm) of "Well code up a patch and we'll include, else fuck off." will know what I mean here.

Well then, what do you mean?

As you may be aware, Slashdot recently included a set of fields that you can fill in with your instant messaging details.

Sounds neat - people can contact me in realtime! I still don't see the GNU tie-in...

Yes, doesn't it? However look again at the list:

• AOL IM
• ICQ UIN
• Yahoo! ID
• Jabber

See anything missing? Hint: it's a very popular messaging system. That's right, MSN Messenger is missing! For some people, such as me, this makes the feature entirely useless as I only use MSNIM. All my friends use MSNIM, so why should I install another client just to receive messages from Slashdot users?

Sounds like an oversight to me. The OSS doesn't ban oversights.

Oh, to be young and naive. Such a bug report was submitted by Super Trooper, a diligent Slashdot reader. The text of the bug and Taco's response are included:

Submitted By:
Jon Anderson (s_trooper)
Users Status:
Closed
Summary:

Missing MSN Messenger entry in user info
Slashdot recently added fields for AOL, Jabber, Yahoo!
and ICQ instant messenger screen names to the User Info
preferences page. However, an entry for MSN Messenger
is conspicuously missing. I can only assume this was an
accidental oversight on the developers' part.

Date: 2002-12-16 06:59
Sender: cmdrtaco
Logged In: YES
user_id=288856

not a bugl

Yup, not a bug. This means one obvious thing - it was deliberate.

Cut to the chase. So Taco is a Microsoft hating fuckwit who probably phoned up the few friends he has to boast about how his omission of MSNIM will singlehandedly bring down Micro$$$oft. Will you please tell me how this means Taco goes against the spirit of the OSS movement?

OK, you win. For those of you who have looked at the definition of open source software will be interested to look at clause 5: The license must not discriminate against any person or group of persons.

Now, this is one of the single most sensible, rational parts of the open source and free software philosophies. Were this clause not there, it would be a slippery slope to begin by excluding oppressive regimes, then maybe unethical companies, then maybe companies who make lots of money already...

Hmm. I see what you're getting at.

Yes, exactly. The point is, the overarching principles of free software sensibly include everyone. This makes perfect sense, and guarantees true freedom of software. By deliberately and arguably even actively not supporting MSNIM, Taco has demonstrated that he cares more about childish ya-boo-sucks posturing than he does about the freedom of software; the freedom of choice. I have no choice; Taco has effectively said that I must use a different messaging system if I want to use this software's feature. Taco has removed my freedom of choice.

I think it is fair to say that RMS, despite his hatred of proprietary protocols, would find this abhorrent; one of the biggest sites in support of open source / free software is deliberately restricting the freedom of its users.

Well what can we do about it?

Sadly, nothing. Taco is a stubborn little child. He will get pleasure every day 'knowing' that his actions have caused serious damage to a multinational multi-billion dollar turnover company.

Thank's for taking the moral high ground, Mr Malda.

I'm already cringing...

[tmark]

I'm already cringing at what I *know* is going to happen. They're going to release some stuff - exactly what they're obligated to - under the GPL. But other stuff - say DRM - will certainly NOT be under the GPL. Then there's going to be such a hoopla and whining in forums such as this one even though these companies have done exactly what they're obligated to. "They should give back to the community", etc, ad nauseum, and some people will be wondering why, if the open/free software implies some sort of larger obligation to a community, why these weren't written into the licenses.

Re:I'm already cringing...

[roemcke]

If they release a combined software-product based on Linux and some DRM, they also have to release the source to the DRM. At least thats how I understand the GPL.

Re:I'm already cringing...

[Anonymous Coward]

Would that be a genuine cring, or a troll-type ad hominem cring Mr. Kreskin?

Re:I'm already cringing...

[sulli]

But other stuff - say DRM - will certainly NOT be under the GPL.

So just delete it.

IN SOVIET RUSSIA...

[Anonymous Coward]

...Project home electrocute you.

IN SOVIET RUSSIA

[Anonymous Coward]

Electronics Home You!!!!

PBX

[Anonymous Coward]

It would be great if Panasonic developed drivers for its PBX boxes. Bayonne needs some support. They also developed a "small" call center solution that panasonic can't sell anymore. So why don't they release it as GPl and step back into the PBX market?

The Adventures of Jennifer Lopez

[Anonymous Coward]

Another tiring live performance. These performances always took a lot out of Jennifer Lopez. Dancing and running across the stage for this amount of time was always exhausting.

But besides being exhausting these dynamic performances sometimes also had another effect on Jennifer. Because she moves so much and so fast on stage for such a long period of time, sometimes the latina's "pipes" would loosen up to the point where she needs a half hour of "retreatment" into the ladies' room to relieve herself. So as soon as she got off stage, she went straight for the girly potty room. She went inside, the usual sweet scent of a ladies' room penetrated her nostrils. She went into a stall, closed the door, lifted her miniskirt and lowered her panties. The wetness of the panties she had grown accustomed to. The movements were causing the crack of her ass to sweat and after two hours of dancing, the panties were lodged completely into her brown crack, soaking up all of the sweat present. Jennifer sat down, and allowed her insides to do most of the work. But for some reason this time it didn't go too well. Where usually the bowel movement was quick and smooth. This time it was like it struggled against being forced out. So Jennifer applied some pressure on her lower body, but it wouldn't help.

"This is going to be a long one," she said to herself, after which she heard the door to the ladies' room open. A woman, probably one of the dancers, went into the stall next to Jennifer's. The sultry singer and actress heard the woman sliding down her panties, snapping the elastic band. As Jennifer struggled to push the content of her guts toward her backdoor, she couldn't ignore the sounds being made in the stall next to hers.

The lady was moaning, the crackling of a turd sliding out was loud enough to be heard, and Jennifer couldn't deny a smile as she heard a fart thundering in the hollow sounding ladies' room.

"Whoa, that sounded like a real birth," Jennifer said casually to the mysterious lady in the next stall.

"Like you wouldn't believe," a womanly voice answered. "I've been holding this up for over half an hour."

Jennifer knew the voice. It belonged to Natasha, a stunningly beautiful black dancer, recently added to the group.

"Yeah, I can sympathize. I've been holding up myself. For over an hour."

"So you must be relieved to get rid of it then, huh?"

"I wish. For some reason it just won't go as easily as it should."

Jennifer heard the girl wipe her privates, pull up her panties and flush the toilet. Then she spoke again.

"You know, this might sound odd. But I have a successful method on how to make it go more smoothly, if you're interested off course."

"Well, I don't want to spend my entire day in here. So if it helps, I'd be happy to know what that method is," Jennifer said honestly.

"Okay. But in order for me to help, you'll have to let me in there."

Jennifer unlocked the stall, and saw Natasha entering. Once again Jennifer was in awe of the beauty of the girl. Her chocolate skin was shiny from the sweat of the performance. And her face resembled that of Brandy Norwood, the R&B singer. Wide eyes and a wide smile.

"Can I...you know...take a look to see if I can see the problem?" the girl asked in a light innocent voice.

Jennifer felt somewhat awkward. Although she was a closet bi-sexual. And had been in this position with several guys and some girls, she still felt a bit weird. But the girl wanted to help her out with her problem, so Jennifer leaned back against the wall, lifted her legs, and placed her feet on either side of the girl against the door of the stall. Natasha made no hesitations in dropping to her knees and staring at Jennifer crotch area. Without Jennifer noticing or realizing, the girl took pleasure in looking at Jennifer's great looking pussy. Shaven at the sides so no hair would be visible in bathing suits, but hairy on top and on the lips, lips that were long and thin. Looking further down her breathing went faster as she looked straight at Jennifer's asshole. A dark, wrinkled pucker that was pouting outward.

"This may sound a bit strange, and if you don't want to answer you don't have to, but...do you ever put your finger in your anus, for instance when you masturbate?" the girl asked while never taking her eyes off of Jen's asshole.

"What? No! No...I mean, I've never thought about doing that. Why do you ask?"

"Well, because my experience is that if you regularly finger your anus, you will experience far less constipation. You see, by fingering your...ass, your muscles learn to relax when pressure is applied. And it loosens up easier."

"I never knew that. So what your saying is that...if I finger my asshole, I should have no problem relieving myself?"

"That's right. That's why porn actresses have enemas before doing anal. So that it doesn't become a mess after the guy pounds her hole so long."

"I don't know. I've never done this. I don't know what to expect."

"You know it's actually quite nice, once you get used to it. If you like, I could try."

Jennifer thought about it and started smiling. "I would like that."

"Okay, first I wet my middle finger in my mouth like this"....... "Then I lubricate the outside of your anus with my saliva to make it slippery".... Natasha rubs the tip of her middle finger all over Jennifer's asshole, which contracts and relaxes under the black girl's touch.

"Then I enter." Natasha now slides her finger all the way into Jennifer's ass to the knuckle. Jennifer closed her eyes and couldn't suppress a moan, she just couldn't. Natasha noticed and knew she gained the desired effect as she started sliding her finger in and out with increasing speed. At one point there were even faint sounds of sloppiness as Natasha was really frigging Jennifer butt. "UUUHMM...that feels good," Jennifer moaned. "Please keep doing that."

"I intend to," Natasha said with a husky tone in her voice. "As a matter of fact, I think you're ready for a little something extra." The ebony girl slid her finger out of Jennifer hole, took a whiff of it, obviously liking the smell, and stuck the digit, along with her index finger into her mouth. After wetting the fingers with lots of spit, she drilled them into Jennifer shitter with one move, and started to rapidly fuck the Latina's ass with them. Natasha knew she had the singer almost where she wanted her...on the edge.

"Oh shit...your fingers feel so good in my ass. Keep fucking me with your fingers. That's it. I never knew it would feel this good."

"Puffy never did this to you, huh," Natasha asked with irony, "He probably thinks it's dirty. Well, fucking a beautiful ass like yours with my fingers is never dirty to me."

Natasha started twisting her fingers around inside Jennifer's ass and felt her ass become more slippery. She took her fingers out again and saw that Jennifer's asshole remained open for a short period. She then looked at her fingers and noticed her fingernails had a little bit of shit on them. She stuck her fingers in her mouth and licked Jennifer's shit from her nails.

"Now it's time for your reward," Natasha said and buried her face in the crack of Jennifer Lopez's ass. She lapped over Jennifer's pouting pucker and used a tongue full of saliva to lube the latina's shithole up. She then started butt-fucking Jennifer with her tongue like a real ebony butt slut. My God, how she enjoyed the sweaty, musky smell and pure, bitter taste of Jennifer's asshole.

Sloppy slurping sounds emanated from the tongue-asshole connection as the black beauty licked and sucked away at Jennifer Lopez's ass with abandon. Jennifer looked down at that dark face between her gigantic butt cheeks and shivered at the sight of that soft pink tongue grinding into the swollen rim of her rectum. She reached out and ran her fingers through Natasha's black hair, before grabbing her by the back of her head and pulling her face tight against the moist crack of her wide, beautiful ass.

"Oh my God. Natasha, you're licking my ass so good. I never knew a tongue in my ass would be this nice. Just don't stop. Keep fucking my butt with your tongue. Oh yeah, that's it."

As Natasha kept drilling her tongue deep into Jennifer's anal orifice, she closed her lips over her pucker, and started sucking on her ass with force. The smacking sounds of her lips on the latina's asshole filled the ladies' room, and it continued to do so for minutes.

"Shit, I feel something. Oh Natasha, I have to...I have to fart. Your sucking of my asshole makes me have to fart. Quickly, take your mouth off my ass."

But Natasha didn't budge. She kept on sucking right until an enormously loud, wet-sounding fart simply blew her lips off Jennifer's pucker. The odor of the hot gas penetrated the black dancer's nostrils and had her so over the edge, excitement-wise, she lost control of her calm self and started yelling.

"That's it, you fucking slut. Fart in my face. Fart that smelly shit right in my face. I love to smell that shit."

Jennifer needed a few seconds to understand what drove Natasha to enjoy something like this, but soon understood that the sheer depravity of it, the perverted nature of all of this, is what drives someone like Natasha wild, and Jennifer decided she was starting to like this nasty stuff as well. She could never deny to herself that she immensely enjoyed the feeling of someone sucking her ass. And knowing that same person actually gets wet smelling her farts.

Natasha had turned down the volume of her voice again and plainly spoke to Jennifer.

"Now that you farted, it means that it won't last long for the rest to come."

The beautiful black woman again started drilling her fingers in and out of Jennifer's swollen poopchute, and noticed the grimace of wanton lust on the latina's face.

"You horny bitch. You sure like this, don't you? Helping you take a shit, my ass! You couldn't wait to feel my fingers and tongue up your ass. You probably farted in my face deliberately. Blowing that shitty hot gas into my face as I sucked on your shithole. Tell me! Tell me you were dying to have me come in here and eat out your ass."

"Oh God. You're so right. You're so fucking right. I heard you shit, and smelled it. And I loved the smell of your fart. I was so hot imagining what you would look like taking a shit. Seeing the turds being pushed from your black ass. I love this. I love your fingers in my butt. Your tongue in my butt. And I loved farting in your face. It's so nasty. It makes me feel so hot and nasty doing that. I would love it so much to shit here as you watch my ass. The thought of you watching my asshole up close as I shit drives me crazy. Will you do that? Will you watch me shit?" Jennifer was shivering on the toilet bowl as she spewed the most perverted, depraved language. She had never talked like this. The nasty black dancer had brought out a side in her she never knew existed.

"I wanna watch you shit, Jennifer. I wanna see those turds popping from your nasty brown hole. Here, watch this, Jennifer. Watch as I pull my fingers from your ass and enjoy the taste."

Right after the final words, Natasha slid her fingers from Jennifer's ass, and showed them to Jennifer. Jennifer saw Natasha's fingers, coated in her shit, and then saw the ebony woman starting to lick her fingers. Looking straight into the celebrity's eyes and with a wild, wanton expression on her face, Natasha licked the layer of dark-brown crème right off her fingers, casually taking her tongue back in her mouth now and again to experience the taste, and letting the sticky shit slide down her throat. After she had completely cleaned her fingers, she looked at Jennifer with a serious expression.

"You're ready. Now push your shit out. Here, spread those legs wider so I can have a nice look, raise those knees. Support yourself and let me hold those ass cheeks spread for you. Now do it."

Jennifer never felt so utterly exposed in her life, sitting there on a toilet bowl with legs spread and knees raised, with a black woman's face mere inches from the sweaty crack of her ass. But the depravity of it, the nastiness, it made here feel so damn lewd, so hot. Jennifer pushed, and pushed, and an earth shattering, meaty fart blew from her pucker, right into Natasha's face, who squealed with joy. And then, it rolled. Jennifer felt the warm content of her bowels slide down towards the opening.

Natasha was still lingering in the mind-blowing smell of Jennifer Lopez's fart, when she saw a thick brown turd sliding slowly out of her ass. The crackling sounds were almost deafening to her as the pungent scent of Jennifer's shit filled her nostrils. The latina singer groaned aloud as she looked at the black dancer's face, and pushed a long turd all the way out, until it broke off and plunged into the bowl, leaving a brown shitty ring on the rim of her asshole. She was completely in the same mind state as Natasha now, as she whispered: "There's more where that came from. But I want you to SUCK it out."

Natasha looked into Jennifer's eyes with a surprised grin, as if she won a lifetime achievement award and didn't expect it.

"Suck it out? Oh Jesus. That's so hot. I'd love to suck the shit from your ass."

"Well then. What are you waiting for?"

That was Natasha's cue. She fused her open mouth to Jennifer's greasy brown asshole and sucked hard on the latina's pucker. Slurping sounds filled the stall and Jennifer groaned increasingly louder as she felt the ebony girl sucking on her sloppy butthole. Natasha enjoyed the bitter taste of the sticky shit that she sucked into her mouth.

"Oh Jesus Christ. That feels so fucking good. I don't care anymore if anybody hears me. JUST KEEP SUCKING MY ASS. SUCK THE SHIT FROM MY BUTT! YES!."

Natasha complied and kept slurping away at Jennifer's dirty ass, when all of a sudden she felt a spongy, warm nugget slide from Jennifer ass into her mouth.

She looked Jennifer straight in the eyes as she moaned and ate the latina's shit.

"Oh God, yes! Eat my shit. Do you like it? Do you like the taste of my shit? Better savor the taste, because it was the last piece."

Natasha chewed the brown piece and after squashing it enough, swallowed it.

"You done with that," Jennifer asked huskily, "then open your mouth, because I've something for you to drink to wash your mouth. Open up for mommy."

Natasha was wondering what the sultry singer meant, but opened her mouth as she had her face inches from the latina's steaming crotch.

"Oh yes, I feel it coming. Get ready."

And when that last word was uttered, Jennifer let go of her bladder, and a steady, yellow stream of warm piss arced from her pisshole straight into Natasha's face. The black dancer squealed in delight as she felt the smelly warm liquid splash her face, and moved her face so she caught the forceful stream straight into her mouth. The hissing sound of the piss leaving Jennifer Lopez's cunt and it hitting Natasha's tongue and roof of her mouth was like music to their ears. Natasha swallowed wave after wave of Jennifer's salty piss and continued to let her tongue be drenched and her mouth be filled.

"Christ, you look so hot drinking my piss," Jennifer whispered as a thunderous fart once again crackled out of her brown asshole.

All good things come to an end, and this includes the content of Jennifer's bladder, as the stream decreased in its strength and it lowered until the last spurts just gushed over the crack of Jennifer's ass.

"Now please clean me," Jennifer said.

Natasha continued her earlier job and again lapped through Jennifer's crack, licking the piss from it and licking off the remainder of shit on the swollen rim of her bulging asshole. After about 2 minutes Jennifer was squeaky clean and pulled her panties up as she looked Natasha in the eye.

"You made me fell better than I have ever felt. Nobody has ever gone this far to give me a good time," Jennifer said.

"It always was my dream to pleasure you," Natasha responded, "I just had to grab this opportunity. My wildest dream was to suck your ass, and you made my fantasy come true. And I just want you to know, Jennifer, that if you ever want me to give pleasure to your pussy or ass again, you just have to tell me."

"Natasha, I would like it very much if you want to be my buttslut. We can have crazy times together on the road. As far as I'm concerned, you can taste my ass whenever you want, because I just love the feeling of your soft, wet tongue fucking my butt."

"Oh Jennifer, you just made me happy. But I have a question. Would you like to service certain body parts of mine just as I service your ass?"

"Just name it," Jennifer said in anticipation.

"Tell me, Jennifer, would you like to suck and lick my toes from now on?"

"Natasha, as far as I'm concerned, you can fuck my ass with your big toe, and I'll clean your toe with my tongue."

Jennifer Lopez and Natasha would have many crazy, lustful adventures from that point on.

Make your day

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Mention Richard Stallman and forget about Larry Wall and Linus Torwalds.
2. ???
3. Profit

Re:Make your day

[imbezol]

RTFA

Great definition from the article

[TeknoHog]

"Source Code: a computer program describing software algorithm written in source language"

Re:Great definition from the article

[kedi]

This is hilarious, and I missed it on first read.
They do have morons writing press releases.
I tried to find an email on their site to write to them but could not find one.

The press release mentions ... Richard Stallman

[stratjakt]

Well, to be fair it specifically says:

"TELL THAT BEARDED LUNATIC TO STOP CALLING US!"

It could mean almost anyone (whos a bearded lunatic).

Why not MSN

[Anonymous Coward]

By deliberately and arguably even actively not supporting MSNIM, Taco has demonstrated that he cares

...about your inbox. MSN Messenger accounts are MSN Passport accounts, which are named after valid e-mail addresses. If Slashdot were to expose MSN IDs, a spambot could spider Slashdot and retrieve a boatload of valid e-mail addresses.

Re:Why not MSN

[91degrees]

As opposed to the existing email field, which cannot be spidered at all you mean?

If people don't want their MSN displayed because they don't want their email spammed, then that's fair enough. They don't need to enter anything. Why is Taco protecting us? We never asked him to.

Re:How Slashdot goes against open source philosoph

[Anonymous Coward]

rubbish.

You can gain access to MSN messenger via your jabber account.

Re:How Slashdot goes against open source philosoph

[jumbie]

do please fuck off

BeOS

[mbbac]

It is a shame Be never open sourced BeOS before they went out of business and left that sort of thing up to the investors. Sony and Matsushita would be much better off with BeOS than Linux for any media related activities.

White is Black. You are not reading this sentence.

[NewAccount]

After appliances and gadgets are connected to the internet, why the next step is that they will do our thinking for us! Thank goodness, those pesky thoughts continue to annoy me, no matter how much TV I watch. Now big corporations will tell me exactly what to do all day everyday. We will all be free from the shackles of critical thought!

Sorry

[TheEnglishPatient]

For some reason the link I posted doesn't work but you can search for cocoon under Older stuff and you'll find it
Sorry again
Nick

PS Bad form to reply to my own post I know

GPL is your friend,

[vilbel]

if you compete against Microsoft. They hope that the total cost for the Linux platform will be less than licensing cost for a technical equal Windows platform. So they can save lots of money and don't found the Xbox. And Microsoft can't use any of the public code in their proprietary software, because it's GPL.

But I do not believe, that they will release everything as GPL. New technologies like Super Audio CD (SACD) will, according to Philips and Sony, never ever appear in a PC. But releasing the driver for the drive and the filesystem could misled someone to play with the hardware and build some SACD-drives into a PC. So he could rip again the music.

Re:GPL is your friend,

[Yankovic]

you know, this is not a true statement. GPL does nothing to help Oracle. Or Palm. Or any of millions of companies that compete against MS. They create just as much intellectual property that helps them differentiate from their competition as MS does. Aligning with Linux DOES compete with MS, aligning with the GPL as the unwanted side effect of killing all your IP.

Re:GPL is your friend,

[dabootsie]

I'm afraid it is you who are mistaken about a great many things.

It only runs off with your IP if you integrate GPL code into your proprietary code. If you don't want that to happen, keep them seperate and do the work yourself. It really isn't complicated. You use it where appropriate and you benefit.

There's nothing stopping Oracle or Palm from using it with and for other things while keeping their proprietary code to themselves. For instance, Palm could use GPL code to speed up the development of apps they intend to give away with palmOS, or to create portable client software for desktops.
Garnering the goodwill of the geek community and even getting some free labour for said open apps is just a nice side-effect.
It doesn't even have to have anything to do with their vertical market. Maybe they'd just want to improve the capabilities of their websites by submitting patches to Apache.

A lot of people misunderstand how the GPL works (some intentionally misinterperet, but that's another matter entirely) and are afraid that if they even consider it, it'll sneak into their houses, shave their pets and glue "kick me" signs to their backs.

Re:GPL is your friend,

[Anonymous Coward]

if they even consider it, it'll sneak into their houses, shave their pets and glue "kick me" signs to their backs.

I hate it when that happens. That G.P.L. guy is a fucker.

Makes sense...

[mshiltonj]

If you want to sell the hardware, give the software away for free.

You hear that, Intel?

Re:How Slashdot goes against open source philosoph

[vofka]

clause 5: The license must not discriminate against any person or group of persons.

Well, this is a classic case of "Anything can be used to build an argument when taken out of context".

This clause refers to the license the software is released under, and not the content or function of the software. Just as Microsoft's Licenses do not define the content and function of their software, the OSS License options, including the GPL, only define licensing terms, and not requirements for software content or functionality.

why do we care?

[kr4jb]

Why do we care what OS runs inside of an embedded device? As long as it is reliable, I don't care if it runs QNX, VxWorks, OSE, RT Linux or any other (proven, real time) operating system.

Re:why do we care?

[TheDawgter]

You mean, 'why do we care about this as long as there are open standards that everyone follows even big giant 8000lb monkey-software corporations"

It's not the OS it's the interfaces that are important.

Re:why do we care?

[pointwood]

I don't. I care about whether it is open. Do it use free, open standards, protocols, etc.? That's what is important. What I'm talking about is http://sincerechoice.org/.

Re:why do we care?

[Chris Burke]

If you care about seeing the usage of free software increase, particularly at a corporate level, then you care about this. If you don't, then you don't, and I hope you have a nice day.

What's going on with blank postings?

[Anonymous Coward]

Something is broke.

SONY, are they GOOD (LINUX) or EVIL (RIAA)

[NiteHaqr]

Your thoughts people :)

Are they talking about producing hardware?

[Dick Click]

I would likely be prepared to shell out some cash for a Sony-produced linux based component that would really work well in my living room. Being able to run linux on the PS2 is not quite enough for my needs. It would have to really integrate well with other AV components.

Awesome

[mao che minh]

Hey, look at that flying pig!

Give me a better definition (in one sentance)

[wodelltech]

As part of a recent acquisition my company made, I had to describe the IP included in the deal. We spent quite a bit of time defining what software meant. In this case, it included everything from java, c, and c++ source (with documentation) to libraries the company previously purchased for specific pieces of hardware. I looked around for a good definition, but discovered that most were pretty bad.

Re:Give me a better definition (in one sentance)

[TeknoHog]

Source is the [preferable] form in which software is written and edited. When the article talks about GPL and distributed development, it should be mentioned that source can be studied to learn about the program, and edited to improve the program; not just copied freely.

GNU/Walkman

[Anonymous Coward]

Does this mean we'll carry GNU/Walkmans in the near future?

Re:GNU/Walkman

[dolmen.fr]

We already have GNU/Stallman.

Shouldn't it be...

[Gothmolly]

from the I-read-this-already-on-Yahoo dept. ?

Is Slashdot relevant anymore?

Re:Shouldn't it be...

[tzimsce]

nope, Slashdot isn't. It's the same bullshit that has been going on for quite some time. Stupid Slashdot users try to make their name a common household one, by posting links to articles that every user on AOL has probably already read.

What smells funny?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sony has been known not to enjoy third party software being run on their hardware. Slashback to here, "Sony Uses DMCA To Shut Down Aibo Hack Site" [ http://slashdot.org/yro/01/10/28/005233.shtml ]. Creating another opensource platform like this would only drive people to create applications for lets say their set top boxes or what have you. I understand that in recent times they have been acting like more of a team player, but thats the thing here. is it just an act?

Seems like most PVR's...

[xchino]

It seems to me that most commercial PVR's are running on a Linux platform, not to mention the several PVR projects for Linux such as MythTV and Freevo.

I use both of these and they both work great (with much tweaking on my part) and I don't have to deal with any of the PVR bs like commercials or having to subscribe.. which makes all the work it took in getting a solution working up more than worth it. If more people would support one of these projects it could easily grow into an easy to use package that anybody can setup in a realatively short time and we can circumvent DRM. "You wanna stick DRM on all the PVR's? Fine, my PC is DRM-less.. do something about it."

Re:Seems like most PVR's...

[mbbac]

If more people would support one of these projects it could easily grow into an easy to use package that anybody can setup in a realatively short time and we can circumvent DRM. "You wanna stick DRM on all the PVR's? Fine, my PC is DRM-less.. do something about it."

Intel, AMD, and Microsoft are doing something about it.

problems with this

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd just like to say that I haven't had sex in quite a while. Cheers.

Re:problems with this

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, my friend, you're certainly posting that info on the proper site.

As I am in the same boat, I'd suggest keeping in mind that "haven't had sex in quite a while" beats "haven't had sex".

Solution(?): Find a killer New Years Eve party, get plenty boozed up, and find a kick ass cool chick who's good to go.

Peace Bro

It just goes to show...

[Demon-Xanth]

Sony and MS don't get along well. There's always been some tension between those two and Sony doesn't mind pouring a little alcohol on the open wound known as the embedded/console market.

That which does not kill me only makes me stronger (but hurts ALOT!)

Panasonic and Sony ALWAYS mention RMS!

[Tsar]

Am I the only one that thought of that pun when I saw this story?

Re:Panasonic and Sony ALWAYS mention RMS!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, you are. What pun are you talking about?

Dateline, Cambridge, MA

[Anonymous Coward]

Posted to slashdot this morning:

"Matsushita (Panasonic) and Sony are going to develop a Linux platform [...] The press release mentions open source, the GPL and even Richard Stallman"

In other news,

Residents of Cambridge, MA reported seeing a bearded man bellowing incoherently while running down the street this morning. "He kept screaming something about 'NEW link ox'? I wish they would lock up all these crazy people who think they're Jesus." Clutching her 10 year old son, she added: "Won't someone think of the children?"

A Cambridge city police officer interviewed said, "The holidays are rough on people. Even though someone may be handed the nicest gift, they'll snap over the littlest thing and go completely insane."

Thank you, thank you. I'm here all week; I'm unemployed.

Okay, okay, I'll stop.

-Brett

Re:Dateline, Cambridge, MA

[Anonymous Coward]

Wicked!

I'll be here all week, and I'm also unemployed.

-- You've got yourself an audience!

(Even if I become employed in the near future, I'll still be reading this nonsense at work at -1)

Peace

Re:BeOS (Get over it)

[Sleepy]

>It is a shame Be never open sourced BeOS before they went out of business and left that sort of thing up to the investors. Sony and Matsushita would be much better off with BeOS than Linux for any media related activities.

Yeah yeah, to borrow a page from the Amiga community. :-)

Sorry, open sourcing BeOS would do NOTHING at this point.

All of the tough questions that apply to Linux-based appliances, also apply to BeOS. You know, those things you have to justify to PHB's and also investors like profit, roadmap, not dilluting your copyrights and patents, etc. Who is going to maintain and extend BeOS to other hardware, as Linux has done?

Open sourcing an OS or environment is no magic pixie dust. I don't think there's enough interest in Be to extend it to odd CPU's, odd audio and video drivers. Be tried positioning itself as a "multimedia" OS, but good luck finding drivers to ALLOW that multimedia.

Linux is MUCH better supported (OSS or not) than BeOS, and remember Linux is just an infant in this arena.

I remember a few years ago, Digital (was it Caldera?) open sourced their version of Digital GEM, the very-thin graphical desktop which was briefly popular on the PC, before Windows. It's open sourced, fits on a floppy, but even with active development it's not up to par with the Atari ST fork of GEM, discontinued about 10 years ago. (The developers of the now OSS version of GEM were hoping to make it a lightweight GUI for cell phones and PDA's).

It's now too late for any new platforms unless there are TRULY new ideas. The way I see it, you have Open Source and you have non-open source Microsoft. Linux, BSD, etc doesn't matter it's the toolchain that is the platform - not the kernel.

The oddball here is Apple Mac OS X. While they are proprietary, the toolchain is (or can be) largely the same as open source. For the position Apple was/is in, they made the wise choice.

Companies who want a "multimedia OS" but DON'T want Linux or Microsoft, I could see an oppurtunity here for Apple (if they don't go after the appliance market all themselves, as they seem to be consiering).

GPL motivation

[gr8_phk]

They want to use existing code to save development costs. They realize what they are selling (hardware) and don't mind that they MUST release source for their derivative work (based on GPLed code), so they make the most of it and try to sound like they support OSS - which in some sense they actually do.

I am amused at how a lot of companies don't realize what they are actually selling. This is a refreshing change.

Paul

Sony/Masushita VS. Microsoft ?

[borgdows]

Sony and Matsushita has both a common ennemy -> Microsoft Microsoft is attacking Sony on their Playstation business, where as Matsushita has very good relationship with Nintendo (they make the mini-dvd player of the Gamecube, and the Gamecube Q)

For those who wonder why we should care....

[SwedishChef]

So, why should we? My job is to design, implement, and administer networks for customers. Some of these are quite large networks and some are small but they all have one thing in common: in order to take care of them I have to understand the way all the components work. Ahhh.... I just heard a penny drop.

I spec Cisco routers and switches because I understand how they work and know that they will do the job. The customer doesn't have to pay me to spend time figuring out how to fix a problem; once I know what the problem is the chances are I can put a fix in quickly. Often without leaving my office! This saves the client money and, not coincidentally, makes me look good.

If Sony puts Linux into a device then I already have a better chance at understanding how to make that device work than if some engineer had designed his (or her) own idea for a cool command set.

And because Sony now doesn't have to put all that extra money into designing the OS, that means that their products will cost less. I can put their products into a network and save money on both ends: the procurement end and the administration end. This makes Cisco scramble to lower prices to keep market share. So even if we don't use Linux devices, the costs for networks goes down just because these devices are out there.

In short, I care what the underlying OS is on these devices because I don't have to learn a zillion different commands for the same things and I can, therefore, do my job quicker and more efficiently. You should care because when you get a job at a company you can hire me to do your network and look good when we save you money.

secure hardware

[doofusclam]

So what do we reckon the chances are of them embedding open source software in secure hardware devices such as SACD players, digital TVs, palladium PCs and set top boxes? I'd say with, for example, Sonys hardware and software interests the chances are less than nil.

seany

Re:How Slashdot goes against open source philosoph

[gazbo]

True. However, I was not trying to imply that Slashdot was actually violating the letter of the law. You'll notice that I only talk about Slashdot going against the principles of free and open source software.

In this case, an open source license must not be written to discriminate against groups of people. Slashdot is wilfully discriminating against people. Sure, technically they are doing nothing wrong, because slashdot obviously isn't an open source license. however, they are going against the spirit of freedom evidenced in clause 5. Perhaps I should make it clearer that clause 5 was only an example, and was not being used as a legal directive.

Thank you for your comments, their cogency was refreshing.

Yes, BSD is dying.

[Anonymous Coward]

and this is proof.

Re:How Slashdot goes against open source philosoph

[EnglishTim]

Have you spoken to CmdrTaco about this? He can be quite good at responding to polite emails...

It's certainly likely to get your further than another offtopic Slashdot rant will.

cheers,

Tim

And how would this help me with home electronics??

[SwedishChef]

I got so carried away with my own rhetoric that I neglected to tie it in to home electronics so here goes:

Thirty years ago anyone who understood electronics theory and vacuum tubes could fix any home electronic device. Simply understanding how electronic circuits worked meant that a tech could move from one device to another. And manufacturers didn't have to design a new theory for each device, they just wired up the vacuum tubes in new ways which were still understandable. All a tech had to do was look at the schematic diagram, apply a few standard tools (oscilloscope, VTVM, signal injector, etc.) and he (or she) could make it work.

So if Sony uses Linux in its latest widget and you understand Linux, you'll understand how your widget works and how to get the most out of your widget. Plus, since Sony didn't have to design a brand new widget-operating-system, you will either be able to buy it cheaper than the Samsung widget or it will do more... or both. And if your widget breaks you won't have to buy a new one, you can just flash the bios and make it just like new.

So putting widely known operating systems into devices saves money for both the manufacturer and the consumer. This makes us all happier and a few of us wealthier. If you learn Linux, and Linux is the OS they put in all these devices, you have a better chance of joining that few. :)

Re:How Slashdot goes against open source philosoph

[gazbo]

No. Did you read the blockquoted bit in the middle where Taco closes a perfectly polite bug report of this issue with the one-line answer that "it's not a bugl [sic]"?

If I'd thought he'd listen (i.e. he hadn't just ignored the bug report) then no, I wouldn't have written the rant.

PS. EnglishTim is a pretty groovy nick. Was it a real-life nickname owing to growing up as a Brit in America or something?

Re:SONY, are they GOOD (LINUX) or EVIL (RIAA)

[ShavenYak]

Sony sucks. And not just because they're members of ??AA (their film subsidiary is an MPAA member, is it not?).

Sony makes overpriced, underperforming crap gear in every consumer electronics category. They are only able to sell their junk thanks to their marketing department. The last good, innovative product they had was the original Walkman.

They can support Linux all they want - I'm happy for Linux if it helps it get more mainstream acceptance (although, embedding it in a consumer product is NOT going to help Linux on the desktop, don't kid yourself). However, I will not buy anything that comes from Sony. I've been burned by their poor quality and lack of support one time too many.

RMS is not going to like this.

[B.Stolk]

RMS may be mentioned in the press release,
but he is still going to be upset (and
quite rightly so):

"Linux is well known as an operating system"

Linux is a kernel.

How hard is it to get important pieces of texts
like press releases without blatant errors?

Bram

Re:RMS is not going to like this.

[jmorris42]

In small embedded spaces it IS just Linux, even if you are GNU zealot. The GNU tools are almost always absent. If the Flash isn't totally puny you get busybox.

Re:RMS is not going to like this.

[Anonymous Coward]

And even busybox has a tiny bit of FSF code in it. And what compiler do you think everyone uses for embedded systems these days?

Re:RMS is not going to like this.

[k8to]

Diab?

Re:RMS is not going to like this.

[Anonymous Coward]

awwww, Take a Fucking Pill, will ya?!

That's a dead argument and the linux-is-a-kernel guys lost.

Deal with it

News.com article up

[pointwood]

Linux tapped to be audiovisual aid

Finally...

[Hubert_Shrump]

I'll be able to use my toaster as a router, my fridge as a switch, and the bathroom sink as a WAP.

And there'll still be lag because of the bandwidth hog ceiling fan. Yes, I know you're still rotating!

OT Re:What smells funny?

[pyz]

Hi,

Sony has been known not to enjoy third party software being run on their hardware.
I understand that in recent times they have been acting like more of a team player, but thats the thing here. is it just an act?

I think not. They published an
AIBO sdk in June. Read an interesting faq about it here.

-- pyz

Sony and RIAA

[covertlaw]

Doesn't it seem a little ironic for a card-carrying RIAA member to be embracing Open Source/GPL for their products? I wonder if they'll try to make some kind of modification or licensing deal to screw Panasonic and the rest of the world from using this embedded system.

Re:How Slashdot goes against open source philosoph

[EnglishTim]

Well, he's written so little that in the report that it's not clear what he means.

Perhaps, for instance, he simply meant that it was a feature request rather than a bug.

My point is that you can't really tell what his position is on it from such a small amount of information. It might just be a spur of the moment thing for him - "Ahh - M$ users - I can't be bothered - I have enough on my plate", which is certainly something that might be changed by a well reasoned email.

As for the nick - no I've never lived in the States - I just made it up when I first chose my hotmail address.

Good, but not enough.

[Goldenpi]

Unusual for Sony to consider going open. Usually they make very propritary technology, such as Minidisc, Memory stick, Magicgate and SACD. This looks a lot like they dont care what they put in their boxes, as long as its cheap. Windows embedded isn't cheap, and it would probably mean adding more RAM too. Just because the systems run linux doesn't mean people will be able to mess with them easily. Its unlikely the appliances will have a convenient RS232 port to plug a terminal into, or a keyboard. People may be able to make some adjustments to the OS, but thats about it. As someone said earlier, even through some code will be released the all-important DRM technology will not. It wont be covered under the GPL as its not part of linux. Without the DRM code and keys the source code wouldn't be much good. You could rewrite sections of the code, recompile, and put it on the drive (or flash a chip for smaller appliances) but what then? The other appliances wouldn't trust it, if it has a hard drive it will be encrypted so the recompiled kernel wouldn't read it. Like most DRM systems it would be an all-or-nothing system. If you really wanted you might be able to recompile a DRM-free kernel and somehow get it to execute, but unless all the other appliances were also rewritten you wouldn't be able to view anything other then your move movies (unless someone breaks the DRM of course) Microsofts response should be quite intresting through. They only have two embedded OS platforms, windows CE and windows XP embedded. Both are a bit on the large side. MS is not going to remove all those fancy skins and 16-bit icons, so they might start marketing more agressivly. Assumeing the whole thing doesn't fade into obscurity, with a complete OS but noone makeing appliances using it, this is certinly good. But dont expect the Microsoft empire to collapse just yet. Like MS, Sony guards its propritary technology carefully. They arn't going to just give away source for playing SACDS or decryption codes for OpenMG.

Re:Good, but not enough.

[doofusclam]

Very true. Using open-source code in part of the design might have the beneficial side-effect, to them, of pacifying people who want to tinker - in the example of SACD players they could for example allow us to use their visualisation API to draw nice pretty pictures to go with the music, but you can guarantee we wouldn't get access to the bitstream itself. Sly buggers.

seany

Re:Good, but not enough.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sony has "opened" before in a similar way. Prior to 1984 or so, all of their semiconductor production was captive -- they used all they made and sold none. They changed that policy, formed a semiconductor sales organization and made available for sale virtually all of their product, including chips used in CD players which were hot selling for them. So big changes are not new to them and they are not afraid to venture where no one has boldly gone before. Matsushita uses Sony as a research and development office, so this joint announcement isn't very strange.

Is it really so black and white?

[Argyle]

Are there only two choices? Good or evil?

Perhaps we techno-geeks need to stop thinking about everything in the real world in binary terms.

The world is an analog place, not a digital one.

Re:Is it really so black and white?

[chef_raekwon]

we should start thinking in "Fuzzy Logic", replacing Binary, and hell, multi-mode analog for that matter...

therefore, Sony is 0.8 good, and 0.2 evil....and can change up or down, depending on further media coverage on the subject ;)

Re:Is it really so black and white?

[Anonymous Coward]

It is when you're trying to decide whether or not to boycott their products. Do you only buy the products rooted in their good actions and not their evil, even if the profits for good acts go to fund evil ones? Because of the evilness of the MPAA, do you boycott all movies or only those that use CSS to qualify for protection by the DMCA to keep you from exercising fair use? Even if it means you can only buy the Harry Potter DVD?

Is there even a point to only buying the good products if they don't keep marks on their ledger for sales of good vs. evil? And then, is there a point in boycotting at all?

If one goes by a threshold of "you can't be more than this evil", how does one go about determining a company's evilness quotient? Number of evil vs. good actions, each weighted by darkness/lightness of the evil/good? By what measure do you weight them?

How much promotion of Linux and open source do they have to do to offset their association with the RIAA and DRM so that I can feel good about buying a really nice digital video camera from them?

Re:How Slashdot goes against open source philosoph

[Anonymous Coward]

Official Slashdot Editor Report Card (Rev 0.04)

Scoring :

Editor begins with 100 points.

Editor is penalized by cliche/offense (see penalties in bold).

Negative scores are valid.

**Check all that apply**

[ ] Told infamous "Karma Doesn't Matter" lie. 50
[ ] "The Lurkers Support Me in Email" 20
[X] Lied to avoid bugfix 25

(ex: Admins are users & no such MSN)

[ ] Told user to "submit a patch" to fix a Slashdot policy issue. 20
[ ] Told user to "submit a patch" for a feature CmdrTaco doesn't want. 10
[ ] Told user to "submit a patch" for a feature CmdrTaco already has. 20
[ ] Told user to "submit a patch" forgetting that users are not paid by OSDN. 5
[ ] Told user to "submit a patch" forgetting that user features may not be committed. 5
[ ] Told user "it won't scale" WRT non-iterative operation. 25
[ ] Made statement regarding K5 moderation without supporting evidence. 10
[ ] Ignored fact that K5 moderation scales better than /. moderation. 10
[ ] Ignored fact that K5 moderation has accountability. 20
[ ] Made "won't scale" argument without Order notation or performance metrics. 5
[ ] Told user to "join the Slashcode mailing list" to discuss offtopic OSDN Policy. 30
[ ] Dismissed user argument without supporting evidence ("Actually, you're wrong"). 20
[ ] Angry reply to nonexistent assertion ("Straw Man" technique). 15
[ ] Insulted a user because user reads /. (forgetting that Editors read /. the most). 40
[ ] Forgot that many readers read at -1, which breaks the feature at issue. 20
[ ] Confused Trollers and Crapflooders. 5
[ ] Confused a Troller or a Crapflooder with a malicious hacker. 5
[ ] Denied or ignored Editor Modbombing in thread. 50
[ ] I'm too busy to do X; I was busy adding anti-ASCII-art regexs to the lame filter. 20
[ ] Confused a Troller with a Troll. 10
[ ] Sweeping assertion made about nonexistent group (ex: "Trolls are all destructive"). 25
[ ] Told user to "read the FAQ" to learn answer not in FAQ. 35

Total Score: [100 - 25] = 75

Grading: Editor Report Card scores correlate well with IQ.

RMS is a SICK PUPPY!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

RMS is one sick puppy! Let's all beat up on Richard Stallman. LWN editor Liz Coolbaugh once found herself seated next to Richard Stallman for dinner at some conference. It turned out not to be one of the most pleasant experiences of her life; there was no way to bring an end to the discussion of whether this publication should change its name to the GNU/Linux Weekly News. Mr. Stallman is nothing if not tenacious.

He is also endlessly controversial. It is generally not surprising to other supporters of free software speaking out against him. This week, however, has been notable even on the RMS scale.

Consider, for example, the release notes for glibc 2.2.4. A minor C library release normally wouldn't draw a great deal of attention; there's not much in the way of exciting new features, and most people avoid upgrading glibc unless they really have to. But most point releases of glibc don't come with comments like:

Stallman recently tried what I would call a hostile takeover of the glibc development. He tried to conspire behind my back and persuade the other main developers to take control so that in the end he is in control and can dictate whatever pleases him....

The morale of this is that people will hopefully realize what a control freak and raging manic Stallman is. Don't trust him. As soon as something isn't in line with his view he'll stab you in the back.

We need better embedded tools and hw

[jj_johny]

The problem with everyone getting so damn happy about Linux being embedded is that as tough as it is to write Linux apps, it is doubly tough for embedded. And just cause they use it does not mean much. Do you really care what brand of engine is on the jet you ride? No, of course not. Are Sony and company going to open up and let you change their software or they just going to use Linux inside (and slap on a Linux Inside label (made out of all the left over Intel Inside labels))? Look at the great Tivo. It built a great product on top of Linux but about all you can do is upgrade the hard disk.

What we really need is much better tools and hardware. One really geat beginning to that need just was released - Qplus Target Builder. This is the first decent open source embedded toolkit. Check it out - soon to be moving to sourceforge.

But then you also need some good hardware and its nearly impossible for the hobbyist to figure out what is decent and what is drek in all the offerings out there. Then you look at the prices and they are out of control. Has anyone found a good source of fanless embedded hardware that does not cost over $500 for a $100 piece of hw? Send me mail if you have.

Re:We need better embedded tools and hw

[grubby]

You can do way more than upgrade the hard drive. People have installed ethernet, been able to setup a web based control to schedule shows remotely. Not to mention adding ram, enabling caller id, ripping shows via ethernet/etc. There are many more things than just upgrading the hard drive.

Re:We need better embedded tools and hw

[cranos]

Do you really care what brand of engine is on the jet you ride?

Hell Yes. I would not want to ride in a jet powered by M$ engines thats for sure.

Wow, that's great!

[sterno]

That's really cool that they are going to release their modifications. There generosity knows no bounds. I mean wow, it's not like the license for the software they are modifying requires them to release those modificaitons... er...

Nevermind...

Don't get me wrong though, this is great news regardless :)

Multimedia is a special case

[Anonymous Coward]

Multimedia is a case where openness is more important than it might be in other applications. While there's nothing really wrong with a proprietary player application or having a player run on a proprietary OS, there does seem to be a slight tendency for proprietary software to use proprietary formats, and for open software to use open formats.

If the designer decides to use Linux, it implies something about their values, which further implies that you will have fewer interoperability problems. The implications can be wrong, of course: it's just a very general trend.

wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

why say such crap? since when has sony been so whack?
i dont know what y'all may b thinkin but i'v got me the PS2, a triniton monitor, a sony dvd player, and a sony television. It's not that i am sony freak or anythin, it's just that i like the quality of what i buy. i'm not like "that sony's tha shit" and all of that, ain't reppn fo that. BUT, what i do want to clear out is that sony's stuff isnt crap, junk, overpriced, etc.
My way of seeing their products is: High Quality - High price.
at least that's my own humble opinion, i know it's costly, but not that much. anyways, "thing wey good na money make am" which means: "Money makes things that are good"

GPL3 ???

[Anonymous Coward]

The Inquirer cites the version as 3:

"The new source code will be made freely available under the General Public License (GPL) 3, which permits free usage and modification."

Is that true?! Is version 3 of the GPL really out?

Put your tinfoil cap on

[smiff]

I'm already cringing at what I *know* is going to happen. They're going to release some stuff - exactly what they're obligated to - under the GPL. But other stuff - say DRM - will certainly NOT be under the GPL.

You aren't cringing enough. They don't need to keep DRM code closed source. They will simply design the system so it won't run unsigned code. If you make one tiny improvement to the code and recompile, it won't work. You will have no choice but to use Sony/Panasonic code.

If you find a security hole, you will have to wait for the vendor to fix it. If you want to create software for the system, you will have to get the vendor's permission. In essense, it defeats the whole point of Open Source (putting you control, letting you improve the system, letting you fix the bugs, etc.).

Of course I'm just speculating. It's possible they'll release the system without DRM, but coming from Sony, I seriously doubt it.

Re:Put your tinfoil cap on

[Quanza]

It also depends a bit on their DRM structure. DRM is definitely not my expertise, but the frameworks I have seen usually involve some central source that monitors and verifies or denies access, keys, what-have-you. Even if they hand out all the client code, it will probably have to access some DRM server that is not public. Sure, you could change the client code to access some other DRM server, but then you might not be able to get the content you want. Perhaps a free-based DRM framework project is needed?

Re:Put your tinfoil cap on

[smiff]

the frameworks I have seen usually involve some central source that monitors and verifies or denies access, keys...Even if they hand out all the client code, it will probably have to access some DRM server that is not public.

There's no need for a remote server. The scheme will work with public key cryptography. Panasonic can distribute their machines with the public key stored in the security chip. Sony will use the corresponding private key to sign their compiled kernel. When the machine boots, it will load the kernel into memory, and check the signature. If the signature doesn't authenticate with the public key, the machine simply refuses to boot.

Once the machine boots, it is running a trusted kernel which can refuse to execute code until it authenticates the signature.

If you make any change to any code, the machine will not execute your code until Sony signs it with their private key.

Under the above system, Sony acts as the grand gatekeeper. You must get Sony's approval to create working code (and quite possibly movies, music, and other content) for this machine. This is exactly the kind of thing the constitution sought to avoid when it separated patents and copyrights.

BotSequitur V1

[Anonymous Coward]

Non Sequitur \Non seq"ui*tur\ [L., it does not follow]
n 1: a reply that has no relevance to what preceded it

AutoGoogle
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Who?

Leftist Zombies?!?

[TheConfusedOne]

Well, I guess if you're a zombie and keep using your right arm you'll wind up as a leftist soon enough. :-}

There is an ancient middle eastern saying

[kfg]

"The enemy of my enemy is my friend."

This saying applies even if your "friend" is otherwise your enemy. In fact, that's largely the point of the saying. "Friend" and "enemy" are, for the most part, simply relative terms, not absolutes.

Think FDR vs Stalin during WWII.

Matsushita and Sony may be bitter "hometown rivals," but there is a foreign enemy, far across the Pacific Ocean, in the new land of capitalist barbarians.

First secure the homefront. THEN cut your neighbor to ribbons. It's traditional.

KFG

This just in!

[Dwaynewayne]

More news here

New idea for a business

[SuperKendall]

If devices really start to become more customizable by the end user, I could see a migration of small TV repair shop type places staring a sideline of device customization - add pictures of the kids/dogs/cats to menus, customize features like macros to do just what the user wants.

A lot of people never take the time to use even slightly advanced features on devices, so a lot of people might be willing to spend a few extra dollars on macros that do slick stuff for them.

Re:New idea for a business

[bilbobuggins]

neat idea, but i think much more likely than per instance jobs you will see a rash of shops selling pre-made software modules that you can plug in as you desire

want butterflies flying around your PVR menus? 19.95 from TVMod Inc.
or choose from any one of our 50+ decorations and menu animations!

actually now that i think about it i might end up forming a new start up after work today ;)

Psion / symbian

[Funkitup]

Hmmm, is this bad news for Symbian then? Surely in the long run Linux will start running on our mobile phones and everything else...

Here's hoping for linux toaster for chrimbo.

Re:And how would this help me with home electronic

[Rutulian]

So putting widely known operating systems into devices saves money for both the manufacturer and the consumer.

Assuming, of course, said operating system can perform the job effectively and efficiently. Thanks to our superb kernel hackers, linux is quite scalable. It works good both on the embedded scale and the supercomputer scale. But one can imagine situations where linux would not be the best solution. In fact, until recently linux wasn't very scalable at all and it would have been a terrible idea to try and use it in embedded devices, even if it IS familiar to most geeks.

Remember Windows CE? I actually think it is still around, but when it first came out it was vastly inferior to PalmOS. Windows was designed to work on a desktop, not in an embedded device. It didn't matter that it was an interface that was already familiar to a lot of people. It wasn't a good tool for the job.

Sony WTF?

[SQLz]

You people actually want Sony developing Linux? WTF is going on here. Sony is basically our worst enemy. They practically are the RIAA. They just want to get their hands dirty with kerenl development so they can magically appear with DRM patches for the kernel when USA outlaws non-DRM enabled Operating systems and hardware.

Re:Sony WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

They can provide patches if they like but they won't go in the main tree. We already know that the kernel hackers don't owe anything to the users (that story about linux nongpl binary modules being restricted (rightfully) in 2.6).
The USA isn't a free country anyway.

something to the effect of (can't remember the wording): non-free countries spend lots of time telling you how free they are. (Alan Cox)

Problem with propriatary tech

[luzrek]

Companies who want a "multimedia OS" but DON'T want Linux or Microsoft, I could see an oppurtunity here for Apple (if they don't go after the appliance market all themselves, as they seem to be consiering).

Unfortunately, if there is an alternative to a propriatary technology hardware manufacturers will go for it. This is why most PC's don't come with Apple's Firewire (the extra $1). With the razor thin profit margins in catagories of electronics manufacturers simply cannot afford to add propriatary technology in their products. Regardless of how much better anyone thinks it is.

Re:Problem with propriatary tech

[Sleepy]

>Unfortunately, if there is an alternative to a propriatary technology hardware manufacturers will go for it. This is why most PC's don't come with Apple's Firewire (the extra $1).

Well there's a lot of reasons re: firewire. You also had to pay to use the NAME "firewire" (hence "Sony iLink").

Lastly, firewire devices are unnecessarily expensive. Fortunately for the Firewire crowd, Microsoft refuses to release USB2.0 support for Windows 2000, ensuring the USB market will grow as slowly as USB1.0 did.

Go for it!!

[SuperKendall]

I put the idea out there so I'd be able to buy something like it in a year or so. Or, perhaps I'll start the same business and one of us can buy out the other in a year!

Root Mean Square

[i_am_nitrogen]

My guess would be RMS=Root Mean Square, in reference to the method used for computing the average power of a signal. Power handling/output is a specification of speakers and amplifiers, and Panasonic and Sony deal with audio equipment.

Sony Linux PVR Cocoon

[doctor_no]

Here is info on Sony's Linux PVR Cocoon:

http://www.sony.jp/products/Consumer/cocoon/

It's uses MontaVista's Linux which is likely what this project is based after.

So Sony's Cocoon should be a good example what this alliance may produce.

Also you can check out the previous /. article about this product:

http://slashdot.org/articles/02/09/04/1328209.sh tm l?tid%129

Sir, you have swayed me

[gazbo]

I shall email the one known as Taco. Expect to be kept informed as to the results.

Much more obvious...

[NineNine]

While I really appreciate you pointing this out, there's a much simpler, and much more important way in which Slashdot is anti-OSS. From the most recent 10Q filed by LNUX (Va Software)

IF WE FAIL TO ADEQUATELY PROTECT OUR INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS, COMPETITORS

MAY USE OUR TECHNOLOGY AND TRADEMARKS, WHICH COULD WEAKEN OUR COMPETITIVE
POSITION, REDUCE OUR REVENUES, AND INCREASE OUR COSTS. We rely on a combination of copyright, trademark, patent and trade-secret laws, employee and third-party nondisclosure agreements, and other arrangements to protect our proprietary rights.

Re:Running their own business

[Anonymous Coward]

I think they realise they are not a software company and they don't want to have there future options limited to that which is dictated to them by a single company. Whether linux succeeds or fails there will still be money to be made on it in the short to medium term.

Great news, but let's not misattribute the gain.

[jbn-o]

I think it's great to see more Free Software being released. I welcome more Free Software programmers and their Free Software projects. But I think the importance of freedom is being ignored to chase what's popular and convenient here and now. I also see some potential for mistaking the advances of a freedom-minded movement for the advances of a freedom-dismissing movement.

From the press release: "While Linux is well known as an operating system for personal computers and servers, today it is also finding applications in the area of digital home devices."

Linux is not an operating system, it is and has been a kernal. The Linux kernal is an important portion of a complete GNU/Linux operating system but it is just a portion (no matter how many people say otherwise) and it's not fair to ignore GNU. There are compelling reasons to take the time to mention GNU when you are talking about a complete operating system.

The great stuff we all appreciate in GNU came from a movement that pays a lot of attention to software freedom. The Open Source movement (which curtly dismisses the importance of software freedom) came over a decade later, well after the GNU GPL had been published and in wide use; well after the pragmatic idealism of the Free Software community had published a lot of Free Software. So please don't misattribute the gains of freedom (both practical and ethical) to the wrong movement.

Re:Good - Not likely

[Yue]

Both companies are driven by some very good case designers plus some toaster-minded engineers.

Did you try a top-of-the-line VCR from Matushita/Panasonic?
It has a lot of complicated/"advanced" features (that work poorly) but it lacks the most ellementary functions (e.g. simple fast forward to where YOU want not where it decides it is the end/start of the track). Sort like emacs in Redhat 7.3.

Did you ever try to use a Vayo notebook? I'm telling you, it is a nightmare. It looks great but it is practically unusable even with Windows. Unstable, most of the functions are software implemented and they work poorly, the BIOS is the greatest failure I've ever seen. Compared to an IBM it is like a bycicle compared to a Rols Royce.

So I doubt such companies (and others including JVC) will actually be able to understand anything about Linux. Even the toothbrush joke is a long shot. They are perfectly match for Microsoft. As a Microsoft marketer told me once about Windows 9x, all these crappy products are "consumer grade" and the consumer doesn't know how they should behave, so it is happy with what they get. Go buy Windows NT and see there professional product (ha, ha, ha).

Re:How Slashdot goes against open source philosoph

[kipozo]

It's amazing, he's correct. Screw Slashdot, screw the OSS, I'm moving back to MS because of Taco and Slashdot.

I'm sorry I even wasted my time on Slashdot. They (by user interpretation) violate Section #5, and to me, that's horrible.

Re:Great news, but let's not misattribute the gain

[Beowabbit]

Actually, in the embedded computing space, there may well be no GNU code on the box. Both of my most recent PDAs have used Busybox utilities in place of the huge (and therefore featureful, but not ideal for a machine with small amounts of permanent storage) GNU utilities.

A previous version of the Linux distro for the iPAQ used the full GNU utilities, but they switched to Busybox a while back for space reasons.

And you know what? A Linux distribution based on Busybox that follows the Linux filesystem standards feels a lot like any other Linux distribution (GNU-based or not). And it doesn't feel very much like a Solaris distribution when /usr/local/gnu is at the front of my PATH. And I've never played with GNU/Hurd, but I bet it doesn't feel much like GNU/Hurd, unless GNU/Hurd has deliberately adopted standards from the Linux community. All of that is part of why I call Linux distros Linux distros. It feels more accurate and more descriptive to me.

People routinely refer to Slackware Linux as Slackware, and to Debian [GNU/]Linux as Debian. If Richard and the FSF want to increase the public mindshare of the term GNU, one good way to do it would be either to encourage Debian to rename their project "GNU Linux" ("GNU" being the name of the distribution), or to start their own Linux-based distribution which they refer to from the start as "GNU Linux". And people would routinely refer to it as GNU, and maybe make the connection that the same people who put it together produced the GNU utilities that show up in other Linux-based distros. That would be a lot more effective than arguing with people about terminology. After all, it's been something like thirty years that people have been encouraging gender-neutral language, a change in terminology that benefits half the population of the planet rather than a small fraction of geeks, and changes in that area are still far from complete. If the FSF wants widespread mindshare for the phrase "GNU", and widespread understanding of what it represents, and if they want it while POSIX-like operating systems and semiconductor-based computing are still relevant, they need marketing methods that work faster than that.

Last Post!

[alpg]

The Commandments of the EE:

(9) Trifle thee not with radioactive tubes and substances lest thou
commence to glow in the dark like a lightning bug, and thy wife be
frustrated and have not further use for thee except for thy wages.
(10) Commit thou to memory all the words of the prophets which are
written down in thy Bible which is the National Electrical Code,
and giveth out with the straight dope and consoleth thee when
thou hast suffered a ream job by the chief electrician.
(11) When thou muckest about with a device in an unthinking and/or
unknowing manner, thou shalt keep one hand in thy pocket. Better
that thou shouldest keep both hands in thy pockets than
experimentally determine the electrical potential of an
innocent-seeming device.

- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...