Slashdot Mirror
Update on Alan Cox's Sabbatical
seymansey writes "ITWales, a company which resides on the Swansea University Campus has posted an interview with Alan Cox regarding his progress of his MBA. It also mentions his opinions on some legal matters that he shows interest in, as well as his plans for the future, and of course for Linux itself."
>1. You can not play games on it.
/usr/ports/x11/XFree86-4
/usr/ports/x11/XFree86-4
l y_2_million_active_sites_running_freebsd.html
Who cares.
>2. It cannot be used by my grandma.
Actually BSD's are more logical and easier to understand. BSD's consist of whole OS, not just kernel with some glued crap on top.
>3. It lacks a GUI of any note.
In FreeBSD:
$locate XFree86
$cd
$make install clean
And of course there's lots of Window Manager for it.
>4. There is no support available for it.
Check bsdmall.com, there's plenty of support options for it.
>5. It is an assortment of fragmented OSes.
As i previously said i would claim Linux as so. as i said BSD's are the whole OSes, not lot's of stuff glued together.
>6. It cannot be run on the x86 platform.
FreeBSD is very robust on x86 and runs it on well, better than Linux imho (overall system response, bootup time etc.)
>7. You have to compile everything and know C.
At least in FreeBSD you can add binary packages easily by typing pkd_add , or use ports which does all the compiling and dependencies for you (similiar to Gentoo's Portage).
>8. Support for the latest hardware is always poor.
This is partially true, though Linux isn't much better at this either. BSD developers usually prefer more robust implementations (For DSL they buy DSL box, not those crappy DSL PCI-cards etc) so hardware that is supported in BSD runs well.
>9. It is incompatiable with GNU/Linux.
How come there is Linux Binary Compability which runs very nicely and without performance hit.
>10.It is dying.
Netcraft's recent study claims BSD's healthy and is growing: http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2003/07/12/near
IRC: Grounded0 @ IRCnet. "I was lucky get into computers when it was very young & idealistic industry" -Steve Jobs
1. emulator7port 2. my grandma is dead 3. KDE/BSD? 4. haha 5. it is an OS
POW detention facilities aren't illegal. Neither are detention facilities for illegal combattants. I'm not an American and don't know US law (as well as you do...), but it's all in accord with UN/Geneva conventions.
/some/ of the conditions which the Geneva Convention concerned with POWs ascribes as being relevant, the default in the absence of signs is /still/ POW status until competant tribunal rules otherwise. (and if they do not have POW status, then they are *civilians* and you treat them as such, ie due process is required to put them into detention camps).
Incorrect. Firstly, the geneva conventions do not, TTBOMK, recognise the term "illegal combatants" - that is something which the Bush administration appear to have invented. Secondly, yes of course POW detention camps are legal. However, POW's have rights under the Geneva Conventions, eg the right to free association for one, the right not to be interrogated for another, the right to the same standard of barracks as is typical for their captors, none of which the prisoners at Guantanemo have.
The whole intent of the Geneva Conventions is to ensure that people are given rights according to their status, be it civilian, soldier, medical personnel, etc.. and, more importantly, that these rights be removed if and *only* if a "competant tribunal" determines otherwise. IOW, the entire point of the Geneva Conventions is to make sure that people are either treated reasonably or else given justice/due process. Which should be an entirely reasonable demand.
You can not simply say "ah they're evil, they dont deserve anything else" or "ah, but they are illegal combatants" or "ah, but national security is at stake". Further, even if they do not wear uniforms or carry a fixed sign they *still* are POWs, as these are just
Anyway, at this point in time, the administration leading the USA firmly believes in unilateralism and firmly believes it should not be bound by international laws and agreements should these be inconvenient. A sad precedent really, eg what will happen if one day american soldiers are captured and their captors decide that the Geneva Conventions are inconvenient, ie follow the precedent the USA has set? Indeed, werent we all outraged during the Iraq war by the display of dead US soldiers on TV, yet the same news programmes also would show images of dead Iraqi soldiers?
anyway... roll on the -1 mods for criticising the camps at Guantanemo bay.
I use Friend/Foe + mod-point modifiers as a karma/reputation system.
Read my third paragraph of the comment you replied to more carefully.
According to the GCs, they are either POWs or civilians, one or the other, further the *default* is that a combatant is a POW. The GC relative to the treatment of prisoners of war, 1949, Article 4, Part A sets out what classes of detainees must be considered POW, and its a very broad list, eg, here is one class:
"1. Members of the armed forces of a Party to the conflict as well as members of militias or volunteer corps forming part of such armed forces."
Reasonably broad. And it also covers civilian resistance to invasion (during the war at least):
"6. Inhabitants of a non-occupied territory, who on the approach of the enemy spontaneously take up arms to resist the invading forces, without having had time to form themselves into regular armed units, provided they carry arms openly and respect the laws and customs of war."
Now, you might quibble about whether someone falls into the classes laid out in Article 4, however, the GC is *explicit* in stating that it requires competent tribunal to class someone as not being a POW, see the short and sweet Article 5:
"The present Convention shall apply to the persons referred to in Article 4 from the time they fall into the power of the enemy and until their final release and repatriation.
Should any doubt arise as to whether persons, having committed a belligerent act and having fallen into the hands of the enemy, belong to any of the categories enumerated in Article 4, such persons shall enjoy the protection of the present Convention until such time as their status has been determined by a competent tribunal."
Note that persons who have not comitted belligerent acts are therefore civilians, and hence afforded the rights laid out under the GC relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War. At best you could try them as a spy or saboteur, note the use of the word "try", these classes of people are *still* afforded due process. This convention specifically forbids:
"(d) The passing of sentences and the carrying out of executions without previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court, affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples."
in Article 3, 1d. Hence if the USA does execute or pass sentence on people detained at Guantanemo bay by means of ad-hoc and closed military courts, the USA would still be in breach, even if these people are *not* POWs - however they clearly must be as the USA has described them as combatants.
Note that the convention does not afford protection to civilians who are nationals of States which are not signatories or which have normal diplomatic relations with the belligerent State. Which is interesting, because while the USA is a signatory to the GCs, I'm not sure whether the USA congress actually ratified the signing of the GC, hence nationals of the USA may not be protected by the GC relative to civilians. Nor would any detainees at Guantanemo who are nationals of non-signatory states, however, they might still have some claim to POW status. They were picked up in belligerent states which the USA had invaded.
Really, it all boils down to: "treat them humanely and be just. If they're combatants you may detain them, but you must still treat them reasonably well and be just."
I use Friend/Foe + mod-point modifiers as a karma/reputation system.