1. Humor. 2. He made it sound like you didn't have to do anything: "I can plug in any Windows 2000 and upward PC into the network...[and all this stuff happens] - all without actually touching it."
Or did you mean "physically" touching it? I mean, heck -- for most of my linux systems I hardly ever sit down at the actual machine and poke at it -- that's what SSH, X tunneled, VNC, etc.. are for.
The homogeneous nature of Windows machines does make it easy to configure many of them all alike, and such ease of administration might not yet exist for linux distros, but I did take issue at the idea that one would plug in a machine and the network would directly alter it without some user input (entering passwords, etc...).
Anyhow, for the linux admins out there, how hard would it be to write some scripts to do the same thing on your favorite distro? You've got to make it "be fully patched, have all the software..., and be fully locked-down...configured (company screen-saver, explorer bar and such things)". I feel like something like that shouldn't be too hard on Ubuntu or RH, eh?
I can plug in any Windows 2000 and upward PC into the network I manage, and within minutes, it'll be fully patched, have all the software we need installed, and be fully locked-down & generally configured (company screen-saver, explorer bar and such things) - all without actually touching it.
So you plug in a Windows PC...and your company network essentially roots it and force-installs software on it - all without you entering a password or opening a port?
And you consider this a good thing?
Meh. Feel free to keep your Windows installs if they make you happy -- for my money, I'm going to try sticking with GNU/Linux.:-)
Like the proprietary MS-Word file formats, the Flash SWF and FLV formats have become so pervasive in our online world (viral animations, YouTube, Google Video, Albino Blacksheep, etc...) that the FSF realizes the importance of providing support in Free Software for reading these formats so that people who try* to run only Free Software do not miss out on this content.
* I say "try" because there are always file formats I cannot open and online services that I cannot access using Free Software (although it seems to be less of a problem today, which is encouraging).
I emailed Adobe recently to clarify their licensing of the Flash/SWF file formats. Here's an abreviated summary of the email conversation: (If people are interested, I can post the full messages somewhere)
Me:
Your licensing page[1] for the Flash and Flash Video file formats states that the license "does not permit the usage of the specification to create software which supports SWF file playback."
Why does your license prohibit the creation of playback software?
The reason I'm asking is that in April of 2002, in an article written by David Becker[2], it seemed clear that Macromedia was committed to making the Flash file formats be open file formats. In the article, "Kevin Lynch, chief software architect for Macromedia," stated that the Flash file format was open for all developers:
"The file format has been open for years now, so people can build whatever software they like around it," Lynch said. "We feel it really needs to be open and to promote an ecosystem where people can build software on top of it...We believe that's the best way to keep the player successful and still provide access to developers."
Jennifer Chang, Senior Program Manager for the Flash Player, responded:
the short answer is: no, you still can't make playback software using our file format specifications. by making the file format open, our intent is to allow 3rd parties to make applications that output SWF and FLV. however, for optimal support and experience, SWFs and FLVs should play in adobe's flash player. we have no plans to open-source flash player itself. we rather like making it ourselves.:)
So there it is -- Adobe does not (and will not) allow 3rd parties to use the documentation for SWF/FLV files to create decoders. Adobe's PDF file format may be open, but the Flash file formats are definitely not open.
So that raises a few questions: 1) Can reverse-engineering the file format give enough information to make a fully-featured flash decoder/player? 2) Will Adobe try to stop such reverse-engineering efforts? 3) Is it worth it to continue along the Flash route, or should supporters of Open Standards promote an alternate vector-based animation/movie format?
Apple can name the phone device something else with little or no loss in visibility or branding power.
No, they can't.
A friend of mine pointed out that Apple really wants to sell the iPhone as a more powerful, multipurpose upgrade to the iPod. The iPod is Apple's most powerful mainstream device, and what better way to market the iPhone than to leverage all of the people with iPods (or who are considering an iPod) and to try to get them to buy the Bigger, Better, Oooh, Shiny! iPhone?
If Apple could have named it something else with no loss in [marketing power], then they would have done that. Do you think that they LIKE to spend money on trademark fights if they don't have to?
Looking at the presentation of the "Tubes" software on your site, it looks like you have something like a distributed version control software. This sounds pretty cool.
Do you have documentation available for the protocols you're using? I'd be interested in seeing a FOSS client for linux -- do you have plans for such a thing?
The trooper's program is not FOSS, but I believe that the FSF's advice to Free Software developers who work for universities is appropriate: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/university.html
Whatever you do, raise the issue early -- certainly before the program is half finished. At this point, the university still needs you, so you can play hardball: tell the administration you will finish the program, make it usable, if they have agreed in writing to make it free software...
Work out the arrangement with the sponsor first, then politely show the university administration that it is not open to renegotiation. They would rather have a contract to develop free software than no contract at all, so they will most likely go along.
I work for a university, and I have explicitly talked to both the senior programmer and to our boss about developing FOSS on my own time (Do it both in person and over email -- so you have a record of the conversation). If you write computer code and want to make sure that your company/university does not try to take it from you, you need to have that conversation. Send an email today!
As someone wrote in another comment, "Who got bribed to use this system?".
In this day and age there should be no excuse for government organizations (fed, state, and local) to implement platform-specific interfaces like this, but it seems that articles like this pop up on/. every other week. It is neither expensive nor technologically difficult to create websites to accept grants (or to accept anything else from the public) while using existing, widely-supported web standards.
I know that there are watchgroups like Amnesty International who police the actions of governments WRT human rights issues -- is there a need for a watchgroup to monitor the technology/websites of the US government to ensure that they are not off in a corner with a single vendor, wanking off?
Why is this so difficult?
A friend of mine in Washington (state) spent a couple of weeks trying to create an interface between his program and some behemouth-of-an-LMS that cost the feds hundreds of thousands of dollars. If the LMS had just supported a *standard* for interfacing with other programs, he probably could've hacked it together in a couple of days, but as it was, I don't think that he could ever get the interface working properly.
Widely-used, royalty-free/patent-free standards. Is it really that difficult?
At least IBM has big pants with deep pockets. I mean, how long has this farce been going on?...And what, pray tell, will IBM see (in terms of monetary relief) when it's over?
I mean, SCO is floundering like a stuck pig on the end of a deep-sea fishing line. They're bleeding all over the friggin' ocean and their lawyers are sucking up the blood as fast as it's pouring out.
How soon before McBride and the boys finally run dry and succumb to their fate? Will there be any money to pay Novell for the licensing fees they are due? Will there be any money to pay IBM's legal team for this long, drawn-out court case?
Something doesn't sit right in my mind when a company can use its dying breath to unfairly inconvenience other companies. If SCO doesn't have any money left to pay its debts when the "curtain is coming down" on this case, can the judge haul off and McGwire the money from the SCO gang like candy from a pinata?
I have a similar problem with a radio. The tuning capasitor(sp) works but the plastic know broke.
(capacitor) That's why I save a lot of parts whenever I junk an appliance. One of the knobs on our dryer broke, but luckily I'd saved the knobs from the old washing machine when we replaced it, and one of them fit on fine (the replacement sticks out about 1/2" too far, but it's definitely usable...).
The new washing machine came with a fresh set of hoses to hook up to the water input and the waste output, but I just used the old ones and put the new set on the shelf -- just in case we need it in the future.
Unfortunately, some things (like the locking handle on the steam cleaner) are just not easily replaceable. Even though I tried JB Weld and epoxy on the handle, the stresses on the plastic were just too great and the handle quickly broke along the same crack. If I could print a new handle, I could just snap it in and go.
(I was joking a bit about learning the CAD interface before getting a 3D printer, but I still would like to find some good, simple 3D CAD software)
I just tried to repair the handle on a steam cleaner (it had broken in half). I don't think I could buy a replacement handle for ANY price (it's an older-model, non-industrial machine), but I could just scan and re-fab one with this machine.
I'm also missing a foot for my laptop (it popped off at some point). Again, I could just print one in a couple of minutes...
Like most/.ers, I'm continually fixing things and trying to create new tools and bins and toys in my workshop -- with a 3D printer, we can just think something up, model it, then print.
Speaking of which, what's a good open-source CAD tool? I haven't found one yet, and I'd like to get familiar with one before these printers go mainstream.
My father is a builder and I grew up seeing how contractors can be so loose with measurements. It amazes me that NASA got this far using a very inaccurate system (at times) for such precise operations.
Building contractors are often loose with measurements because building a house does not require the same precision as sending a rocketship to Mars. If you are framing a house, it's usually okay to be off by an inch or a few cm's, because the result is within expected tolerances. If you are sending a yard-long metal box millions of miles through space, being off by an inch or a few cm's at launch can magnify to being miles off at your destination.
As long as a system of measures has internally consistent units, it will be no more or less precise than any other system of measures, right? I mean, I can ask you to cut me a 1.0000000000000000001-inch chunk of a platinum bar; that's pretty darn precise!
A giant meatball slipped off that plate and thus our earth was born.
Are you trying to say that the Earth was created when the FSM's balls dropped?
Speaking of which, maybe man was created when God went through puberty and...umm...you know, did a little too much "one-handed websurfing". I mean, doesn't the bible say that he sowed his seed all over the land?
As everyone has stated, he's gone well beyond the call of duty here. At some point I would just tell them that I dispute the charges and I'd see them in small claims court if they didn't understand basic math (I'm sure that their lawyers would straighten it out before it got to the court room!).
But here's a way to make it maybe a bit clearer over the phone (or in text):
If you are selling apples at 5 dollars/pound, and I buy 10 pounds, then we can look at that like this:
5 dollars/pound * 10 pounds. The "pounds" units cancel out (that's the important part to get across) and you are left with 5 * 10 _dollars_.
With this guy, forget the dollars. Start with cents: We have 0.002 cents/KB. Then we have a usage of 35893 KB.
0.002 cents/KB * 35893 KB. Just like above, the KB cancel out and we are left with 0.002 * 35893 cents. That's CENTS, not DOLLARS.
And how much is that? Well do the math, and we get 71.19 cents.
How many cents in a dollar? 100. So that's ($0.71). Ugh. I have to hand it to the guy for being so unbelievably patient with the reps.
he's broken one of the basic rules...of being...a member of most animal species...he's harmed one of his children.
Human communities may have certain moral codes, but many animal species will kill their children or have sex with their children.
Mammals (rabbits, dogs (I believe), etc..) will sometimes kill the weakest of their litter and feed it to the rest of the litter if food is scarce.
Rabbits, fish, (and probably a lot of other animals) will all have sex with their children. Usually animals have sex when they reach an age of sexual maturity. But humans don't anymore...
Which brings us around to age-of-consent laws. The Age of Consent in most states is usually between 16-18, but almost all girls and most boys have entered puberty well before 16.
Nature tells us that we are "adults" several years before Federal/State law proclaims us as such. Nature tells our bodies to have sex, but the laws say we can't.
Nature has been around a hell of a lot longer than any of our laws. Should we be listening more to Nature? (Is there a biologist/doctor in the house who can shed some light on this?)
Buying new means starting over -- the keyboard is clean, nothing is broken, and you get to pick an new model, etc... You get a new warranty, and you (probably) get better system specs.
Those are some pretty convincing arguments!
As a result, I get a lot of older laptops this way. I fix them up and give them to friends or use them for little servers. Until a laptop is a commodity like a toaster, where the new model won't have that much to offer over the old model, people will buy a new computer instead of repairing an old one.
And anyhow, people toss out their old toasters and buy new ones all the time, too... so maybe people will never go back to fixing their broken tools/machines. It's sad...
..that the Minister seems so keen to promote, such as the "First Thai animation movie 'Khan Kluay'".... there's no open source software being used there.... right?
Render farms, graphics workstations,... must all be on proprietary software that doesn't touch BSD, Linux, anything GNU, etc... Amazing!
Slashdot Mirror
Apple is locking their software to particular hardware. This sounds like DRM to me.
Live Free or Die!
-- Q,
born in Oregon, livin' in NH.
(I'm generally pretty happy about both states...)
1. Humor.
2. He made it sound like you didn't have to do anything: "I can plug in any Windows 2000 and upward PC into the network...[and all this stuff happens] - all without actually touching it."
Or did you mean "physically" touching it? I mean, heck -- for most of my linux systems I hardly ever sit down at the actual machine and poke at it -- that's what SSH, X tunneled, VNC, etc.. are for.
The homogeneous nature of Windows machines does make it easy to configure many of them all alike, and such ease of administration might not yet exist for linux distros, but I did take issue at the idea that one would plug in a machine and the network would directly alter it without some user input (entering passwords, etc...).
Anyhow, for the linux admins out there, how hard would it be to write some scripts to do the same thing on your favorite distro? You've got to make it "be fully patched, have all the software..., and be fully locked-down...configured (company screen-saver, explorer bar and such things)".
I feel like something like that shouldn't be too hard on Ubuntu or RH, eh?
And you consider this a good thing?
Meh. Feel free to keep your Windows installs if they make you happy -- for my money, I'm going to try sticking with GNU/Linux.
Like the proprietary MS-Word file formats, the Flash SWF and FLV formats have become so pervasive in our online world (viral animations, YouTube, Google Video, Albino Blacksheep, etc...) that the FSF realizes the importance of providing support in Free Software for reading these formats so that people who try* to run only Free Software do not miss out on this content.
* I say "try" because there are always file formats I cannot open and online services that I cannot access using Free Software (although it seems to be less of a problem today, which is encouraging).
(If people are interested, I can post the full messages somewhere)
Me: Jennifer Chang, Senior Program Manager for the Flash Player, responded: So there it is -- Adobe does not (and will not) allow 3rd parties to use the documentation for SWF/FLV files to create decoders. Adobe's PDF file format may be open, but the Flash file formats are definitely not open.
So that raises a few questions:
1) Can reverse-engineering the file format give enough information to make a fully-featured flash decoder/player?
2) Will Adobe try to stop such reverse-engineering efforts?
3) Is it worth it to continue along the Flash route, or should supporters of Open Standards promote an alternate vector-based animation/movie format?
No, they can't.
A friend of mine pointed out that Apple really wants to sell the iPhone as a more powerful, multipurpose upgrade to the iPod. The iPod is Apple's most powerful mainstream device, and what better way to market the iPhone than to leverage all of the people with iPods (or who are considering an iPod) and to try to get them to buy the Bigger, Better, Oooh, Shiny! iPhone?
If Apple could have named it something else with no loss in [marketing power], then they would have done that. Do you think that they LIKE to spend money on trademark fights if they don't have to?
Hi,
Looking at the presentation of the "Tubes" software on your site, it looks like you have something like a distributed version control software. This sounds pretty cool.
Do you have documentation available for the protocols you're using? I'd be interested in seeing a FOSS client for linux -- do you have plans for such a thing?
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/university.html
I work for a university, and I have explicitly talked to both the senior programmer and to our boss about developing FOSS on my own time (Do it both in person and over email -- so you have a record of the conversation).
If you write computer code and want to make sure that your company/university does not try to take it from you, you need to have that conversation. Send an email today!
As someone wrote in another comment, "Who got bribed to use this system?".
/. every other week. It is neither expensive nor technologically difficult to create websites to accept grants (or to accept anything else from the public) while using existing, widely-supported web standards.
In this day and age there should be no excuse for government organizations (fed, state, and local) to implement platform-specific interfaces like this, but it seems that articles like this pop up on
I know that there are watchgroups like Amnesty International who police the actions of governments WRT human rights issues -- is there a need for a watchgroup to monitor the technology/websites of the US government to ensure that they are not off in a corner with a single vendor, wanking off?
Why is this so difficult?
A friend of mine in Washington (state) spent a couple of weeks trying to create an interface between his program and some behemouth-of-an-LMS that cost the feds hundreds of thousands of dollars. If the LMS had just supported a *standard* for interfacing with other programs, he probably could've hacked it together in a couple of days, but as it was, I don't think that he could ever get the interface working properly.
Widely-used, royalty-free/patent-free standards. Is it really that difficult?
At least IBM has big pants with deep pockets. I mean, how long has this farce been going on? ...And what, pray tell, will IBM see (in terms of monetary relief) when it's over?
I mean, SCO is floundering like a stuck pig on the end of a deep-sea fishing line. They're bleeding all over the friggin' ocean and their lawyers are sucking up the blood as fast as it's pouring out.
How soon before McBride and the boys finally run dry and succumb to their fate? Will there be any money to pay Novell for the licensing fees they are due? Will there be any money to pay IBM's legal team for this long, drawn-out court case?
Something doesn't sit right in my mind when a company can use its dying breath to unfairly inconvenience other companies. If SCO doesn't have any money left to pay its debts when the "curtain is coming down" on this case, can the judge haul off and McGwire the money from the SCO gang like candy from a pinata?
I hope so.
(capacitor) That's why I save a lot of parts whenever I junk an appliance. One of the knobs on our dryer broke, but luckily I'd saved the knobs from the old washing machine when we replaced it, and one of them fit on fine (the replacement sticks out about 1/2" too far, but it's definitely usable...).
The new washing machine came with a fresh set of hoses to hook up to the water input and the waste output, but I just used the old ones and put the new set on the shelf -- just in case we need it in the future.
Unfortunately, some things (like the locking handle on the steam cleaner) are just not easily replaceable. Even though I tried JB Weld and epoxy on the handle, the stresses on the plastic were just too great and the handle quickly broke along the same crack. If I could print a new handle, I could just snap it in and go.
(I was joking a bit about learning the CAD interface before getting a 3D printer, but I still would like to find some good, simple 3D CAD software)
I just tried to repair the handle on a steam cleaner (it had broken in half). I don't think I could buy a replacement handle for ANY price (it's an older-model, non-industrial machine), but I could just scan and re-fab one with this machine.
/.ers, I'm continually fixing things and trying to create new tools and bins and toys in my workshop -- with a 3D printer, we can just think something up, model it, then print.
I'm also missing a foot for my laptop (it popped off at some point). Again, I could just print one in a couple of minutes...
Like most
Speaking of which, what's a good open-source CAD tool? I haven't found one yet, and I'd like to get familiar with one before these printers go mainstream.
Building contractors are often loose with measurements because building a house does not require the same precision as sending a rocketship to Mars. If you are framing a house, it's usually okay to be off by an inch or a few cm's, because the result is within expected tolerances. If you are sending a yard-long metal box millions of miles through space, being off by an inch or a few cm's at launch can magnify to being miles off at your destination.
As long as a system of measures has internally consistent units, it will be no more or less precise than any other system of measures, right? I mean, I can ask you to cut me a 1.0000000000000000001-inch chunk of a platinum bar; that's pretty darn precise!
Speaking of which, maybe man was created when God went through puberty and...umm...you know, did a little too much "one-handed websurfing". I mean, doesn't the bible say that he sowed his seed all over the land?
But here's a way to make it maybe a bit clearer over the phone (or in text): If you are selling apples at 5 dollars/pound, and I buy 10 pounds, then we can look at that like this:
5 dollars/pound * 10 pounds. The "pounds" units cancel out (that's the important part to get across) and you are left with 5 * 10 _dollars_.
With this guy, forget the dollars. Start with cents:
We have 0.002 cents/KB. Then we have a usage of 35893 KB.
0.002 cents/KB * 35893 KB. Just like above, the KB cancel out and we are left with 0.002 * 35893 cents. That's CENTS, not DOLLARS.
And how much is that?
Well do the math, and we get 71.19 cents.
How many cents in a dollar? 100.
So that's ($0.71). Ugh. I have to hand it to the guy for being so unbelievably patient with the reps.
Here's a link to have google do the calculation (complete with units!): Have Google calculate it for Verizon
Human communities may have certain moral codes, but many animal species will kill their children or have sex with their children.
Mammals (rabbits, dogs (I believe), etc..) will sometimes kill the weakest of their litter and feed it to the rest of the litter if food is scarce.
Rabbits, fish, (and probably a lot of other animals) will all have sex with their children. Usually animals have sex when they reach an age of sexual maturity. But humans don't anymore...
Which brings us around to age-of-consent laws. The Age of Consent in most states is usually between 16-18, but almost all girls and most boys have entered puberty well before 16.
Nature tells us that we are "adults" several years before Federal/State law proclaims us as such. Nature tells our bodies to have sex, but the laws say we can't.
Nature has been around a hell of a lot longer than any of our laws. Should we be listening more to Nature? (Is there a biologist/doctor in the house who can shed some light on this?)
Buying new means starting over -- the keyboard is clean, nothing is broken, and you get to pick an new model, etc...
You get a new warranty, and you (probably) get better system specs.
Those are some pretty convincing arguments!
As a result, I get a lot of older laptops this way. I fix them up and give them to friends or use them for little servers. Until a laptop is a commodity like a toaster, where the new model won't have that much to offer over the old model, people will buy a new computer instead of repairing an old one.
And anyhow, people toss out their old toasters and buy new ones all the time, too... so maybe people will never go back to fixing their broken tools/machines. It's sad...
..that the Minister seems so keen to promote, such as the "First Thai animation movie 'Khan Kluay'".... there's no open source software being used there.... right?
... must all be on proprietary software that doesn't touch BSD, Linux, anything GNU, etc... Amazing!
Render farms, graphics workstations,
Does that really work?
qubit@mslinuxbox:~$ make good software
make: *** No rule to make target `good'. Stop.
qubit@mslinuxbox:~$
Hmm... doesn't work for me...
Jack Thompson, is that you?
No, we're not giving you a politically correct version!
2- What? No.
1- You're banned from the US for a year!
2- Oh my God! Fine, take my laptop! Don't ban me!
1- I don't even want it now.
[PA:2005-10-01]
*tries to look innocent*
It's the Biggest Common Denominator?
/.ed)
(I dunno... what is BCD supposed to mean, anyhow? -- article is