Slashback: Documentary, Directory, FUD

Slashback tonight brings some updates and clarifications to previous stories, including news of the successful production of both a BBS documentary and an open-source directory. Read on for more!

I goof, therefore I am sorry. Many readers submitted rebuttals to the claim I repeated that an Israeli web portal was the first to give users 1GB email accounts; Protein Shake, for one, writes that Spymac has them beat. "Forget Google, forget Israel's web portal... 1 GB e-mail is already out there. At least a few weeks ago. From their site '1 GB e-mail account, 350 MB combined storage, personal blog, forum, gallery, auctions and more...'"

"And this was back when phone lines were just strings painted to resemble copper ..." Jason Scott writes "The BBS Documentary, announced on Slashdot nearly three years ago, has wrapped up filming. With over TWO HUNDRED interviews in the can, I've been spending a lot of my spare time (and not-so-spare time) editing, but I decided to put out the first of what will likely be a few trailers for it. Stop by and check out how I've spent the last few years. The Documentary will be released as a 3-DVD set later this year."

It's like Who's Who, only different. Another gargantuan effort completed on a different front: Tony Stanco writes with word that "The 910-page Open Source Reference Book is available for download."

The project was announced just over a year ago; considering the contents that's not a bad turnaround.

It's nearly enough to make one cynical. Alex Wolfe writes "In a move worthy of the Luddites, the New York City Council is quietly trying to ban the Segway . The Council has proposed a law that's technically a ban on motorized scooters, but Harris Siliver, founder of Citystreets, an urban improvement organization, says the NYC Department of Transportation is specifically targeting the electric, non-polluting Segway. Silver is joined in his opposition to the bill by Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak."

Get out much? If you just can't get enough random flamebait, here's a small fix to follow the anti-Linux FUD spread earlier this month by Green Hills CEO Dan O'Dowd. InfoSec writes "This morning's Security Focus page had an article about Consumer Grade *nix. The writer of the article slams Linux for not having free automated updates, enabling services in default installations, and not warning users when they are using 'root'. Uhmm, I could be wrong, but hasn't Mandrake been doing that for quite some time?"

apt-get update seems to count as free updates to me (though those folks do take donations), and root-use warnings may not be perfectly applied, but they are found in various forms (depending on distro) at OS, WM, and application levels, including notices that certain tasks can only be run as root or other superuser. (I think it's Xchat that calls me "an idiot" when I've tried to run it as root.)

Comments

"non-poluting segway"

[Anonymous Coward]

non-poluting segway

Generating electricity still causes pollution, it just causes a lot less polution than a car.

Re:"non-poluting segway"

[bottlebrushtree]

The ban was thanks to the work of Walk San Francisco, San Francisco's Pedestrian Advocacy Group.

WalkSF.org

The sidewalks are no place for a vehicle that goes as fast as a Segway. This means Bikes also.

For more information on why WalkSF helped get this law enacted check out

Walk SF's Segway Page

Re:"non-poluting segway"

[lawpoop]

How many European towns have you been to? A lot of them have been retrofitted to accomodate cars, bikes, trains, buses, trams, trollies, etc.

I think existing bike pathways, which you will find in a lot of European cities, will easily handle segway traffic.

SUSE

[Anthony Boyd]

The writer of the article slams Linux for not having free automated updates, enabling services in default installations, and not warning users when they are using 'root'.

SUSE gives me free updates via YAST, comes with all services disabled in the "minimal graphical install" default that I use (well, networkable services are not enabled, but things like cron are), and when I log in via root, the desktop is a red graphic with a pattern of large bombs all over it. Sound fairly perfect to me. The only other thing would be a warning at the command line for a non-GUI root login, and in fact I sorta get that, because the default for the root shell prompt is different.

1 Gb is possible right now

[Carlos Silva]

I don't know if everyone around here knows.. but if you create a Blogger account you can be one of the lucky ones to try out Gmail beta, even if you have some kind of problem in using it (tinfoil hat crowd :) it's always a Good Thing to try it out...
Until now.. it has been pretty good.. at least for me..

Re:1 Gb is possible right now

[Carlos Silva]

I think the more active your account is (number of posts?) the more chances you have.
When you're selected they show a pretty invitation when you login :)

If you speak Russian

[prostoalex]

Doesn't matter much for most of the Slashdotters, but if you happen to read Russian (or always wanted to learn that language), Yandex Mail, which is part of Yandex, Russia's largest Web portal and search engine, announced unlimited mail storage space with maximum letter size of 10 MB and unlimited attachments (as long as the message with all the attaches stays below 10 MB).

Basically, they will just keep buying more hard drives as you grow your message store.

OSS Reference: add your gov-relevant project

[persaud]

For submitting a new listing (free) for the next edition of the book, go here.

Re:Trailers in wma and quicktime??

[Fancia]

I think you've confused yourself a bit. The documentary is about BBSs, not open-source. The open-source thing was the directory.

Re:Shells would be so much better

[persaud]

Color coded prompt:

/etc/bashrc:

C_RED="\[\033[0;31m\]"
C_GREEN="\ [\033[0;32m\]"
C_LIGHT_GRAY="\[\033[0;37m\]"
C_R ESET="\[\033[0m\]"
PS1="\n$C_GREEN//\h$C_LIGHT_GR AY.\u $C_RESET\w> "

/root/.bashrc:

PS1="\n$C_GREEN//\h$C_RED.\ u $C_RESET\w> "

Another anti-fud website

[whoever57]

Grokshill is aimed at false claims made by reporters and analysts