That may be true for you, but not the vast majority (18+ million) of Internet users who use AOL or some similar service. Their knowledge of computers and networking is not sophisticated enough to allow them to configure sendmail, Apache, etc. They need to have their hands held.
Also, on the "all I need is an IP" argument... I have DSL. I pay my Telco. a monthly fee for the service. I pay another company, my ISP a monthly fee for Internet service. The ISP provides me with a connection to the Internet and the all important IP address. I could have gotten the IP from my Telco., but I didn't like their policy on assigning them. (The Telco. uses dhcp while the ISP I chose assigned me a number that stays my number for as long as I'm their customer.)
The ISP also provides POP e-mail, a few megs of web space and Usenet feeds. Granted, I could set up my own e-mail, my own web server, and even get a Usenet feed from another party and host my own Usenet groups. I still use my ISP's services because it saves me time, effort, and I'm paying for them anyway just to get my IP number.
The point is, you need that IP number, as you, yourself pointed out. Do you want to be locked into one company's policies for how you use it, or do you want a choice?
The real question here is "What does this move mean for the community?" If this comes to pass will it have any effect, good or bad, on the community?
Does it mean that Red Hat will get "special" versions of compilers that "optimize" for Red Hat? I mean, come on, "they" already "have" Codewarrior.
I don't really know what it means for the community, so I'm asking those more qualified to answer. I do know that Red Hat appears to be pretty smart when it comes to serving the free software/open source community, so I'm hoping that after such a merger, it would just be business as usual. However, if the rumors of senior execs leaving Red Hat over the acquisition are true, then perhaps something else is going on?
While this a bit off-topic, ADB (Apple Desktop Bus), used in most Macintosh and some NeXT machines, also pretty much requires you to reboot every time you add a peripheral. It only initializes the bus at boot time, so any devices added after boot will not be registered. You can, however, remove a device and plug it back in without rebooting the machine and have that device still function, provided of course that you don't short the bus while doing so.
The above is true whether you run Mac OS, Linux, *BSD, or even BeOS on your system. That's just the way the hardware works.
IIRC, newer Macs with the translucent, multi-color cases don't ship with ADB and instead use USB for keyboard, mouse and other peripherals. I can't speak with authority here though, since I don't own one.
I, for one, will be ecstatic the day that IRQs are eliminated from PC hardware. That was a lame-o design if there ever was one.
I know I'm jumping into this a bit late, but this topic raises another question that probably merits a much more detailed and longer response than someone could give you in this forum.
I've given some thought to the issues surrounding encrypiton, anonymity and total, open disclosure on the Internet. There doesn't appear to be any clearcut answer regarding any of them. There are times when anonymity is an unmitigated good thing: dissidents in a repressive state sending out information about government atrocities who fear reprisals. There are times when anonymity is a problem: anonymous spam for instance, or the Anonymous Cowards here on Slashdot.:-)
Encryption can be a blessing (protecting your confidential information) and a curse (what was that key again?). I don't even want to address the issues of law enforcement and crime and encryption because that's too thorny for a few short words. Although, the guy who just forgot his private key and can't decrypt the e-mail telling him where to meet his contact for the rendez-vous is going to wish that he had some trusted third party for key escrow.
Privacy? That's a big question and it all comes down to what you consider private and what you consider public, and there are probably 6 billion different answers to those questions. Do you really want people to be able to post absolutely anything that they want in total anonymity, or do you want people to have some level of responsibility for what they say in a public forum? The answers are not always as obvious as you might think.
Personally, I don't care if someone could actually trace all the packets back to my machine. I don't care if they see that I was looking at porno on my home machine at 1:00 A.M. this morning. (Actually, I wasn't. If you did check what was coming into my machine at 1:00 A.M. this morning, you'd find source code for MkLinux streaming in over a remote cvs session.) I'm not doing anything that I would be embarrassed for people to know or that could get me in legal trouble. When I need confidentiality, I use encryption. The Internet and its underlying protocols as currently consituted and as described in IPv6 are inherently open and insecure. You'd be a real fool to do anything on the 'net that you wouldn't do in a public cafe in your home town without some kind of encryption.
What do I consider an intrusion on my privacy? When I get annoying e-mail spam, or worse, phone spam. E-mail spam, I can just delete it, but phone spam generally eats up a good five minutes of my time while I listen to the initial spiel and then say "No, I make it a rule to never accept unsolicited phone offers, and by the way, remove this number from your list."
Hmm, well, I've rambled on for long enough. Perhaps, one rainy Saturday when I've got nothing better to do, I'll dig out some on the subject of online privacy and privacy in general, and write up a little piece for the features section on just what privacy is, and how I think it ought to work on public networks.
I tried looking for stephenson.com and stephenson.net a while back. Several companies have beaten me to them. In fact, one of those companies hosts my personal web site at jason.stephenson.net.
The whole domain name thing is a real mess. We need to come up with something completely different.
I agree with you completely. The only way to let people know is by telling them, by making it clear that truly free software (in the free speech sense) is better for everyone than proprietary, closed software licensing, even Sun's supposedly "open" SCSL.
When I first read the piece, I thought, "Neat, now I can get the source for Solaris and maybe get it to work with the hardware on my x86 box." You see because of its open development model, Linux supports more hardware than any other OS available. (Sure NetBSD may have been ported to more platforms, but Linux has drivers for far and away more hardware.) So, I thought that this looked like an opportunity to write some Solaris drivers and hack the Solaris kernel. But then, I thought, "Why do Sun's work for them?" That's all this is, an opportunity for Sun to make money off the backs of all us free software fanatics.
I'm not jumping to Solaris. I'm sticking with GNU/Linux or possibly even some form of BSD. I won't be joining Sun (or Apple's Darwin) until they come up with a better license. It doesn't have to be the GPL exactly, but it does need to be more open and more free than the current one.
The real problem with such a filtering system is that it allows people to filter out any message that they disagree with. This is very bad(tm) because it would allow people to reinforce their own, personal prejudices and furhter isolate us from each other. Better, the mindless cacophony of unrestricted free speech on the Internet and all other media than to have each of us cloistered in our own little media space that never intersect with those of others.
To remain healthy and open, societies need the free exchange of ideas. The fathers of the Constitution of the United States of America understood this, hence the First Amendment.
Didn't Wang sue Netscape before, claiming that they had patents that basically covered what the World Wide Web does? IIRC, these patents were applied for in the 1980s. I seem to recall the suit being thrown out.
I have a hunch this is just another case of some company patenting the obvious, or the already in use, and trying to make a quick buck off of it.
Quite frankly, I think that all patents ought to be done away with.
I wouldn't want to be on the team developing that App!
You want me to interface with every available widget set and all the possible ways that they work and you still want me to ship this app on time? HA! I quit, find yourself another sucker.
The biggest problem with this Censoring proposal is that it sets a terrible precedent -- why not start censoring the books themselves? I mean, there's all kinds of bad language and innuendo in Shakespeare . . . .
and in: The Christian Bible The Torah The Koran The Uppanishads and any other historical, literary or religious work that ever had any meaning or relevance!
I can't imagine why Neal is hanging around the Microsoft campus. He lives in Seattle, but other than that I can think of no motivation for him to be there.
Up until '95, he was a die-hard Mac fan and Mac hacker. Then he had some problems with a laptop and switched to Linux. He loves UN*X, by the way, and has written a manifesto on command line interfaces. You can download it from the promotional site for his latest book.
Disclaimer: I have to inform you all that my name is Jason Stephenson, and I also went to Boston University, a few years after Neal graduated.
Thermal imaging devices have been been powerful enough "to see through" walls for two decades now.
There is talk of putting black boxes in automobiles similar to what one finds in airplanes, so that vehicle state can be reconstructed after accidents. Some law enforcement agencies have been asking that these boxes serve as tracking devices and also have the ability to shut the vehicle down remotely.
Have you not heard of the proposed "smart card?" It would be a credit card-like device that essentially allows you to carry your financial and medical (an any other) histories around with you at all times. It has been proposed that these things replace cash.
There is a lot of other scary stuff going on if you pay attention to the right channels, and most of these are nonsensational, open sources. ("Open source" is spook speak for non-governmental, non-classified sources: media, industry rumor, etc.)
There is a lot of other stuff that goes on that the media doesn't talk about because the concerned parties don't advertise their actions. Yet, if you listen on the proper channels, and know where to get the info. (again, from open sources, but more obscure titles), you can piece together some of what is going on.
There is so much good intel on this stuff out in the open, that I shudder to think of what is actually being kept under some classification or another.
If you think I'm paranoid, think again. I don't believe in the "New World Order" and "black helicopter" conspiracies, even though it does say "Novus Ordo Seclorum" on the U.S. one dollar bill. Seclorum, an interesting choice of wording, that.
No, my name isn't Ted Kazinsky, either. I don't think that anyone is really trying to subvert democracy in the U.S. with all these gadgets and the application of technology. Law and Order types are basically lazy, and they want to do their jobs with a minimum of risk and effort, kind of like hackers, but with a slightly different social ethic. Yes, there is a potential for these tools to be abused, just as any tool can be abused, but I believe that it is up to the individual, and the individuals collected in a society, to safeguard their own freedom. I don't bitch and moan about the apparent erosion of freedom in the western world in private, because I agree with Voltaire in that the people usually get the kind of government they deserve.
Yeah, I thought of writing a Perl script to do it, plus automatically enter me. You could get in on all ten days without any effort that way.
However, there is nothing to stop them from changing the name of the image, or the link that it points to each day. In fact, I'd be surprised if they didn't.
Remember, you have to click on the footprint to follow the link to register. If that URL doesn't change, all you have to do is go to that URL every day and submit your info. This would be all too easy to script with LWP.
I read the rules, but didn't read the FAQ, so I may be missing some info., but that's my take on it.
Yeah, but you wouldn't let 'em drive without a license would you? So why should they use a computer without a clue?
Sure, they can do less damage with a computer, at least physical damage to other people, but I would think that everyone would want to understand at least how to get their work done on a computer in the most efficient manner.
We haven't seen productivity gains from computerization because of lusers who don't know how to use their hardware and OS (whatever it is).
EG, I've been given boringly repetitive work that was estimated at four hours and done it in 20 minutes, because I did the first two entries, saw there was a pattern and wrote a little script to do the rest. If Joe Blow luser ever learns to do that.... Well, I'll leave that up to your imagination.
A majority of the public doesn't even know what kind of computer they have, let alone how to operate it. They couldn't use Linux if they tried, because they can't even learn to use the power switch.
It is woeful ignorance and its perpetuation that keeps M$ in business.
This fragment of a sentence explains it all: "An operating system is a culture, with ways of doing and seeing and expressing things peculiar to its members..."
Stephen King once said that he is the "Big Mac and shake" of literature. I guess that makes M$ the Big Mac and shake of software. So, what's Linux?
I like to think of it as spicy, Moroccan vegetable stew (and no, I don't mean ratatouille) with cous cous.
Anyway, I like my private, M$-free culture better than the brain-dead culture my employer forces upon me.
Slashdot Mirror
Otto,
That may be true for you, but not the vast majority (18+ million) of Internet users who use AOL or some similar service. Their knowledge of computers and networking is not sophisticated enough to allow them to configure sendmail, Apache, etc. They need to have their hands held.
Also, on the "all I need is an IP" argument... I have DSL. I pay my Telco. a monthly fee for the service. I pay another company, my ISP a monthly fee for Internet service. The ISP provides me with a connection to the Internet and the all important IP address. I could have gotten the IP from my Telco., but I didn't like their policy on assigning them. (The Telco. uses dhcp while the ISP I chose assigned me a number that stays my number for as long as I'm their customer.)
The ISP also provides POP e-mail, a few megs of web space and Usenet feeds. Granted, I could set up my own e-mail, my own web server, and even get a Usenet feed from another party and host my own Usenet groups. I still use my ISP's services because it saves me time, effort, and I'm paying for them anyway just to get my IP number.
The point is, you need that IP number, as you, yourself pointed out. Do you want to be locked into one company's policies for how you use it, or do you want a choice?
The real question here is "What does this move mean for the community?" If this comes to pass will it have any effect, good or bad, on the community?
Does it mean that Red Hat will get "special" versions of compilers that "optimize" for Red Hat? I mean, come on, "they" already "have" Codewarrior.
I don't really know what it means for the community, so I'm asking those more qualified to answer. I do know that Red Hat appears to be pretty smart when it comes to serving the free software/open source community, so I'm hoping that after such a merger, it would just be business as usual. However, if the rumors of senior execs leaving Red Hat over the acquisition are true, then perhaps something else is going on?
While this a bit off-topic, ADB (Apple Desktop Bus), used in most Macintosh and some NeXT machines, also pretty much requires you to reboot every time you add a peripheral. It only initializes the bus at boot time, so any devices added after boot will not be registered. You can, however, remove a device and plug it back in without rebooting the machine and have that device still function, provided of course that you don't short the bus while doing so.
The above is true whether you run Mac OS, Linux, *BSD, or even BeOS on your system. That's just the way the hardware works.
IIRC, newer Macs with the translucent, multi-color cases don't ship with ADB and instead use USB for keyboard, mouse and other peripherals. I can't speak with authority here though, since I don't own one.
I, for one, will be ecstatic the day that IRQs are eliminated from PC hardware. That was a lame-o design if there ever was one.
"Nanites" sounds trite. I prefer, "nanities", a mush of "nano" and "entity." Then we can call us larger, organic types "inanities."
I know I'm jumping into this a bit late, but this topic raises another question that probably merits a much more detailed and longer response than someone could give you in this forum.
:-)
I've given some thought to the issues surrounding encrypiton, anonymity and total, open disclosure on the Internet. There doesn't appear to be any clearcut answer regarding any of them. There are times when anonymity is an unmitigated good thing: dissidents in a repressive state sending out information about government atrocities who fear reprisals. There are times when anonymity is a problem: anonymous spam for instance, or the Anonymous Cowards here on Slashdot.
Encryption can be a blessing (protecting your confidential information) and a curse (what was that key again?). I don't even want to address the issues of law enforcement and crime and encryption because that's too thorny for a few short words. Although, the guy who just forgot his private key and can't decrypt the e-mail telling him where to meet his contact for the rendez-vous is going to wish that he had some trusted third party for key escrow.
Privacy? That's a big question and it all comes down to what you consider private and what you consider public, and there are probably 6 billion different answers to those questions. Do you really want people to be able to post absolutely anything that they want in total anonymity, or do you want people to have some level of responsibility for what they say in a public forum? The answers are not always as obvious as you might think.
Personally, I don't care if someone could actually trace all the packets back to my machine. I don't care if they see that I was looking at porno on my home machine at 1:00 A.M. this morning. (Actually, I wasn't. If you did check what was coming into my machine at 1:00 A.M. this morning, you'd find source code for MkLinux streaming in over a remote cvs session.) I'm not doing anything that I would be embarrassed for people to know or that could get me in legal trouble. When I need confidentiality, I use encryption. The Internet and its underlying protocols as currently consituted and as described in IPv6 are inherently open and insecure. You'd be a real fool to do anything on the 'net that you wouldn't do in a public cafe in your home town without some kind of encryption.
What do I consider an intrusion on my privacy? When I get annoying e-mail spam, or worse, phone spam. E-mail spam, I can just delete it, but phone spam generally eats up a good five minutes of my time while I listen to the initial spiel and then say "No, I make it a rule to never accept unsolicited phone offers, and by the way, remove this number from your list."
Hmm, well, I've rambled on for long enough. Perhaps, one rainy Saturday when I've got nothing better to do, I'll dig out some on the subject of online privacy and privacy in general, and write up a little piece for the features section on just what privacy is, and how I think it ought to work on public networks.
I tried looking for stephenson.com and stephenson.net a while back. Several companies have beaten me to them. In fact, one of those companies hosts my personal web site at jason.stephenson.net.
The whole domain name thing is a real mess. We need to come up with something completely different.
I agree with you completely. The only way to let people know is by telling them, by making it clear that truly free software (in the free speech sense) is better for everyone than proprietary, closed software licensing, even Sun's supposedly "open" SCSL.
When I first read the piece, I thought, "Neat, now I can get the source for Solaris and maybe get it to work with the hardware on my x86 box." You see because of its open development model, Linux supports more hardware than any other OS available. (Sure NetBSD may have been ported to more platforms, but Linux has drivers for far and away more hardware.) So, I thought that this looked like an opportunity to write some Solaris drivers and hack the Solaris kernel. But then, I thought, "Why do Sun's work for them?" That's all this is, an opportunity for Sun to make money off the backs of all us free software fanatics.
I'm not jumping to Solaris. I'm sticking with GNU/Linux or possibly even some form of BSD. I won't be joining Sun (or Apple's Darwin) until they come up with a better license. It doesn't have to be the GPL exactly, but it does need to be more open and more free than the current one.
The real problem with such a filtering system is that it allows people to filter out any message that they disagree with. This is very bad(tm) because it would allow people to reinforce their own, personal prejudices and furhter isolate us from each other. Better, the mindless cacophony of unrestricted free speech on the Internet and all other media than to have each of us cloistered in our own little media space that never intersect with those of others.
To remain healthy and open, societies need the free exchange of ideas. The fathers of the Constitution of the United States of America understood this, hence the First Amendment.
Didn't Wang sue Netscape before, claiming that they had patents that basically covered what the World Wide Web does? IIRC, these patents were applied for in the 1980s. I seem to recall the suit being thrown out.
I have a hunch this is just another case of some company patenting the obvious, or the already in use, and trying to make a quick buck off of it.
Quite frankly, I think that all patents ought to be done away with.
Go for it! }:-)>
I wouldn't want to be on the team developing that App!
You want me to interface with every available widget set and all the possible ways that they work and you still want me to ship this app on time? HA! I quit, find yourself another sucker.
I suggest you try writing such a monster!
See you in about 400 years....
According to the FAQ on his official home page, Weird Al has had LASIK and no longer needs glasses. The short hair is, evidently, a wig.
The biggest problem with this Censoring proposal is that it sets a terrible precedent -- why not start censoring the books themselves? I mean, there's all kinds of bad language and innuendo
in Shakespeare . . . .
and in:
The Christian Bible
The Torah
The Koran
The Uppanishads
and any other historical, literary or religious work that ever had any meaning or relevance!
I can't imagine why Neal is hanging around the Microsoft campus. He lives in Seattle, but other than that I can think of no motivation for him to be there.
Up until '95, he was a die-hard Mac fan and Mac hacker. Then he had some problems with a laptop and switched to Linux. He loves UN*X, by the way, and has written a manifesto on command line interfaces. You can download it from the promotional site for his latest book.
Disclaimer: I have to inform you all that my name is Jason Stephenson, and I also went to Boston University, a few years after Neal graduated.
Those assertions aren't all that far-fetched.
Thermal imaging devices have been been powerful enough "to see through" walls for two decades now.
There is talk of putting black boxes in automobiles similar to what one finds in airplanes, so that vehicle state can be reconstructed after accidents. Some law enforcement agencies have been asking that these boxes serve as tracking devices and also have the ability to shut the vehicle down remotely.
Have you not heard of the proposed "smart card?" It would be a credit card-like device that essentially allows you to carry your financial and medical (an any other) histories around with you at all times. It has been proposed that these things replace cash.
There is a lot of other scary stuff going on if you pay attention to the right channels, and most of these are nonsensational, open sources. ("Open source" is spook speak for non-governmental, non-classified sources: media, industry rumor, etc.)
There is a lot of other stuff that goes on that the media doesn't talk about because the concerned parties don't advertise their actions. Yet, if you listen on the proper channels, and know where to get the info. (again, from open sources, but more obscure titles), you can piece together some of what is going on.
There is so much good intel on this stuff out in the open, that I shudder to think of what is actually being kept under some classification or another.
If you think I'm paranoid, think again. I don't believe in the "New World Order" and "black helicopter" conspiracies, even though it does say "Novus Ordo Seclorum" on the U.S. one dollar bill.
Seclorum, an interesting choice of wording, that.
No, my name isn't Ted Kazinsky, either. I don't think that anyone is really trying to subvert democracy in the U.S. with all these gadgets and the application of technology. Law and Order types are basically lazy, and they want to do their jobs with a minimum of risk and effort, kind of like hackers, but with a slightly different social ethic. Yes, there is a potential for these tools to be abused, just as any tool can be abused, but I believe that it is up to the individual, and the individuals collected in a society, to safeguard their own freedom. I don't bitch and moan about the apparent erosion of freedom in the western world in private, because I agree with Voltaire in that the people usually get the kind of government they deserve.
Yeah, I thought of writing a Perl script to do it, plus automatically enter me. You could get in on all ten days without any effort that way.
However, there is nothing to stop them from changing the name of the image, or the link that it points to each day. In fact, I'd be surprised if they didn't.
Remember, you have to click on the footprint to follow the link to register. If that URL doesn't change, all you have to do is go to that URL every day and submit your info. This would be all too easy to script with LWP.
I read the rules, but didn't read the FAQ, so I may be missing some info., but that's my take on it.
Yeah, it seems like cheating to me, too.
Yeah, but you wouldn't let 'em drive without a license would you? So why should they use a computer without a clue?
Sure, they can do less damage with a computer, at least physical damage to other people, but I would think that everyone would want to understand at least how to get their work done on a computer in the most efficient manner.
We haven't seen productivity gains from computerization because of lusers who don't know how to use their hardware and OS (whatever it is).
EG, I've been given boringly repetitive work that was estimated at four hours and done it in 20 minutes, because I did the first two entries, saw there was a pattern and wrote a little script to do the rest. If Joe Blow luser ever learns to do that.... Well, I'll leave that up to your imagination.
I'm in definite agreement on that one.
A majority of the public doesn't even know what kind of computer they have, let alone how to operate it. They couldn't use Linux if they tried, because they can't even learn to use the power switch.
It is woeful ignorance and its perpetuation that keeps M$ in business.
This fragment of a sentence explains it all:
"An operating system is a culture, with ways of doing and seeing and expressing things peculiar to its members..."
Stephen King once said that he is the "Big Mac and shake" of literature. I guess that makes M$ the Big Mac and shake of software. So, what's Linux?
I like to think of it as spicy, Moroccan vegetable stew (and no, I don't mean ratatouille) with cous cous.
Anyway, I like my private, M$-free culture better than the brain-dead culture my employer forces upon me.