Heh. You aren't the first one to ask that question, and I doubt you'll be the last. DigitalConvergence hasn't bothered to answer that very large, very IMPORTANT question, and I doubt they will either. Considering their profit model (give away barcode reader, collect user information, sell databases full of user data to advertisers), why would they? I'm sure they know that if they _actually_ answered that question, we'd all be laughing our asses off... _____
The fact that they (MetroLink) contribute to the open source community (I don't consider one small kernel driver on XiG's part to be significant), if I was going to spend money on an X server, they're the first ones I'd look into doing business with. _____
My gripe is the same - they don't provide, in my mind, a significantly better product, they charge an outrageous sum for it, and then have the nerve to badmouth the open source community (mind you, I don't consider them PART of the open source community - the only piece of code I've seen come out of XiG that was open source was the agpgart kernel driver).
I almost wish there werre a law like the one (IIRC) in the UK, that specifically bans advertising that trashes on the competition. I also mentioned my gripes to one of their representatives at LinuxWorld this summer in San Jose - they said they would look into it. Yawn. _____
Well, considering the Visors can't be updated (no Flash ROM), they can't really charge for what they aren't doing. At least my Palm's OS can be upgraded, though I think that it sucks that the 3.5 upgrade is gonna cost $20. _____
Yeah yeah yeah. There are better things these people could spend their time on, I suppose. But this is really interesting (making things do stuff they weren't intended for), and has major hack value. Also, it's just plain damned cool. We _are_ hackers, after all. May as well do interesting stuff.
And if you don't want to hear about stuff like this... well, you DID choose to read it, now didn't you? _____
You, dear sir, are so full of shit, I'll bet money that your eyes are brown. No one has (or has to have) signed copyright of anything they license under the GPL to the FSF. Where'd you get this loony idea? _____
Well, a similar thing could be done with the *BSDs, if they ever became a competitive threat, esp. on the platform that Microsoft has the biggest hold on - namely, the desktop. (And even more easily, because they wouldn't have to worry about any GPL wranglings - they could take the code whole, and call it their own, since the BSD license's advertising clause was dropped.)
Don't delude yourself. The situation the poster before you described is unlikely, but he's saying that if nobody cares about enforcing the GPL, then it means nothing, and anyone, including Microsoft, can do pretty much anything they like. _____
Umm. You must not be too familiar with Linux filesystems - all distros I know of make/usr/lib writable ONLY by root. (As it should be.) If someone were to change the permissions of any/usr/* directory to allow writing by anyone but _specifically_ authorized users, (generally root only) then they're getting what they deserve.
From what I understand, though, this DDoS client is installed and started by exploiting an rpc.statd root hole that existed in RedHat a version or 2 back. Good reason to keep up on known exploits, eh? _____
If another user knows the name of a file in your home directory, even if they can't list the directory's contents, they can still read/write/execute it if the file's permissions allow it. That's just a case where any "private" files needs to have their mode changed to prevent others from accessing them.
But of course, as others have said, don't expect complete privacy on a multiuser machine. _____
BTW, it's funny how -x works for a directory. I never knew. Actually it works kind of strange; you can list all files, but you cannot have any further information on these files (e.g. ls -l). You can't delete the dir. Strange. Should't -w and -r have a little more logical effect? In other words, what's the special use of -x?
No, the 'x' bit on a directory lets you execute (change into) a directory. If a directory is +x only, you can change into it, but you cannot list its contents. (If you know the name of a file and the user you're logged in as has read permission, you can read it.) The 'r' bit lets you list the contents (but by itself, won't allow you to change into the directory or access the directory's contents). The 'w' bit on a directory lets you modify the directory's contents (add a file, delete a file, rename a file, move files in/out). The 't' bit will restrict directory-write privilege to your own files. _____
And your point is...? IBM's JRE for Linux works quite well, and is actually rather fast. I don't know if it supports OJI or not, but if it does, then it should (in theory) work fine without waiting for Sun to get their shit together and make a Linux release. _____
Yah, unless you're lucky enough to be installing a service back that horribly breaks something that some piece of software you're running is dependent upon - then things get nasty. Or the whole dance of getting NT installed with some particular service... install these service packs, then install app, install another service pack, install app service pack, do dance with rubber chicken... come on.
With Debian, I do 'apt-get update ; apt-get dist-upgrade' and I have _everything_ up to date. No problem. _____
If you looked at their archive of his previous "stories" (most look like fiction to me, but), you'll see he's got a real Microsoft fetish. He bashes Linux whenever he can, and of course, has articles saying how bad ol' Judge Jackson was out to get Microsoft during the big trial. (Keep in mind, Jackson was initially saying that he intended to give them a slap on the wrist at best - until they showed him zero respect in court. That kind of behavior makes the judge less interested in what you have to say.) _____
He got that number from 38 (the 1999 total count for RedHat) and 84 (the Linux aggregate vulnerability count). 38 + 84 is, hmm, carry the one.. 122. That's of course doing some double counting - apparently Mr. Moody didn't bother reading all the disclaimer text at the top of the vulnerability DB stats page - he must have been in too big a hurry to get his big story onto ABC's site... _____
The article doesn't state that "Linux is the worst operating system ever", just the worst of the ones that he compared (NT and unices).
Really? Quoth Fred Moody (from his moronic article):
Linux is arguably the worst operating-system product in history, and Microsoft's the best.
His point isn't that Linux isn't perfect, but that Linux is the worst OS out there (as he himself said). Please read the article next time...
And, that's some interesting logic he's got going there. Because of the count of bug reports on BUGTRAQ, you can determine which OS is better? Even though NT/Win2k are closed source, so bugs are significantly harder to find? I'd like to hear him explain that... _____
I was thinking that as well. Crappy cookie-cutter pop music sung by a teen bimbo with overinflated boobs, and an overinflated sense of self importance? Just because some people are dumb enough to listen to, not to mention buy, that crap doesn't mean the entire world cares.:) _____
How would such a watermark persist through the A->D->A transition? Even if it did, don't you think an MP3 encoder (or Vorbis OGG encoder, or similar), if it has a good to excellent psychoacoustic model, would strip out the part of the signal where the watermark is embedded?
I think a lot of people have a lot of big ideas in this whole debate, but that they're probably not as certain about it as they'd like us to believe./me wants verification. _____
Probably not. And if you could, why would you want to? How is Loki going to make any money if no one buys their games, instead wanting a free conversion from the Windows to Linux version? _____
According to them, it's DRAM. And in a self-refresh mode, it should be able to maintain its contents for a minute at a time. Check out the info provided by TRG for a more complete description of what is going on. _____
No, that's not how it works at all. Read the info on TRGpro.com (they discovered the problem). It's just an issue of using an alternative powersaving mode for the DRAM when the Palm is in sleep mode. _____
No. The issue was that a particular batch of DRAM chips, when used in self-refresh mode, would randomly lose a row of data one time in every 10000 or some (I forget) wake/sleep cycles. The Palm runs the DRAM through a wake/sleep cycle once a minute, so every few days it would just lose some data. The patch just tells the OS to use an alternative method to preserve the data in RAM while in sleep mode instead of the self-refresh mode. It is believed that it _could_ consume slightly more battery power than the normal self-refresh mode, but it doesn't seem to be significant.
Don't make a bigger thing out of this than it is. It could be a lot worse. _____
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Heh. You aren't the first one to ask that question, and I doubt you'll be the last. DigitalConvergence hasn't bothered to answer that very large, very IMPORTANT question, and I doubt they will either. Considering their profit model (give away barcode reader, collect user information, sell databases full of user data to advertisers), why would they? I'm sure they know that if they _actually_ answered that question, we'd all be laughing our asses off...
_____
The fact that they (MetroLink) contribute to the open source community (I don't consider one small kernel driver on XiG's part to be significant), if I was going to spend money on an X server, they're the first ones I'd look into doing business with.
_____
Apparently a lot of people are having a hard time with that. :)
_____
My gripe is the same - they don't provide, in my mind, a significantly better product, they charge an outrageous sum for it, and then have the nerve to badmouth the open source community (mind you, I don't consider them PART of the open source community - the only piece of code I've seen come out of XiG that was open source was the agpgart kernel driver).
I almost wish there werre a law like the one (IIRC) in the UK, that specifically bans advertising that trashes on the competition. I also mentioned my gripes to one of their representatives at LinuxWorld this summer in San Jose - they said they would look into it. Yawn.
_____
Well, considering the Visors can't be updated (no Flash ROM), they can't really charge for what they aren't doing. At least my Palm's OS can be upgraded, though I think that it sucks that the 3.5 upgrade is gonna cost $20.
_____
Yeah yeah yeah. There are better things these people could spend their time on, I suppose. But this is really interesting (making things do stuff they weren't intended for), and has major hack value. Also, it's just plain damned cool. We _are_ hackers, after all. May as well do interesting stuff.
And if you don't want to hear about stuff like this... well, you DID choose to read it, now didn't you?
_____
You, dear sir, are so full of shit, I'll bet money that your eyes are brown. No one has (or has to have) signed copyright of anything they license under the GPL to the FSF. Where'd you get this loony idea?
_____
Well, a similar thing could be done with the *BSDs, if they ever became a competitive threat, esp. on the platform that Microsoft has the biggest hold on - namely, the desktop. (And even more easily, because they wouldn't have to worry about any GPL wranglings - they could take the code whole, and call it their own, since the BSD license's advertising clause was dropped.)
Don't delude yourself. The situation the poster before you described is unlikely, but he's saying that if nobody cares about enforcing the GPL, then it means nothing, and anyone, including Microsoft, can do pretty much anything they like.
_____
Umm. You must not be too familiar with Linux filesystems - all distros I know of make /usr/lib writable ONLY by root. (As it should be.) If someone were to change the permissions of any /usr/* directory to allow writing by anyone but _specifically_ authorized users, (generally root only) then they're getting what they deserve.
From what I understand, though, this DDoS client is installed and started by exploiting an rpc.statd root hole that existed in RedHat a version or 2 back. Good reason to keep up on known exploits, eh?
_____
If another user knows the name of a file in your home directory, even if they can't list the directory's contents, they can still read/write/execute it if the file's permissions allow it. That's just a case where any "private" files needs to have their mode changed to prevent others from accessing them.
But of course, as others have said, don't expect complete privacy on a multiuser machine.
_____
BTW, it's funny how -x works for a directory. I never knew. Actually it works kind of strange; you can list all files, but you cannot have any further information on these files (e.g. ls -l). You can't delete the dir. Strange. Should't -w and -r have a little more logical effect? In other words, what's the special use of -x?
No, the 'x' bit on a directory lets you execute (change into) a directory. If a directory is +x only, you can change into it, but you cannot list its contents. (If you know the name of a file and the user you're logged in as has read permission, you can read it.) The 'r' bit lets you list the contents (but by itself, won't allow you to change into the directory or access the directory's contents). The 'w' bit on a directory lets you modify the directory's contents (add a file, delete a file, rename a file, move files in/out). The 't' bit will restrict directory-write privilege to your own files.
_____
And your point is...? IBM's JRE for Linux works quite well, and is actually rather fast. I don't know if it supports OJI or not, but if it does, then it should (in theory) work fine without waiting for Sun to get their shit together and make a Linux release.
_____
Yah, unless you're lucky enough to be installing a service back that horribly breaks something that some piece of software you're running is dependent upon - then things get nasty. Or the whole dance of getting NT installed with some particular service... install these service packs, then install app, install another service pack, install app service pack, do dance with rubber chicken... come on.
With Debian, I do 'apt-get update ; apt-get dist-upgrade' and I have _everything_ up to date. No problem.
_____
Not to mention those who apparently lack the comprehension skills of an average sixth-grader.
Moody is an embarrassment, no matter what news agency he's with.
_____
If you looked at their archive of his previous "stories" (most look like fiction to me, but), you'll see he's got a real Microsoft fetish. He bashes Linux whenever he can, and of course, has articles saying how bad ol' Judge Jackson was out to get Microsoft during the big trial. (Keep in mind, Jackson was initially saying that he intended to give them a slap on the wrist at best - until they showed him zero respect in court. That kind of behavior makes the judge less interested in what you have to say.)
_____
He got that number from 38 (the 1999 total count for RedHat) and 84 (the Linux aggregate vulnerability count). 38 + 84 is, hmm, carry the one.. 122. That's of course doing some double counting - apparently Mr. Moody didn't bother reading all the disclaimer text at the top of the vulnerability DB stats page - he must have been in too big a hurry to get his big story onto ABC's site...
_____
Really? Quoth Fred Moody (from his moronic article):His point isn't that Linux isn't perfect, but that Linux is the worst OS out there (as he himself said). Please read the article next time...
And, that's some interesting logic he's got going there. Because of the count of bug reports on BUGTRAQ, you can determine which OS is better? Even though NT/Win2k are closed source, so bugs are significantly harder to find? I'd like to hear him explain that...
_____
Actually, there was recently a /. article stating that MySQL's license had been changed to the GPL, so it's now free in both senses. (I think.)
_____
I was thinking that as well. Crappy cookie-cutter pop music sung by a teen bimbo with overinflated boobs, and an overinflated sense of self importance? Just because some people are dumb enough to listen to, not to mention buy, that crap doesn't mean the entire world cares. :)
_____
How would such a watermark persist through the A->D->A transition? Even if it did, don't you think an MP3 encoder (or Vorbis OGG encoder, or similar), if it has a good to excellent psychoacoustic model, would strip out the part of the signal where the watermark is embedded?
/me wants verification.
I think a lot of people have a lot of big ideas in this whole debate, but that they're probably not as certain about it as they'd like us to believe.
_____
Probably not. And if you could, why would you want to? How is Loki going to make any money if no one buys their games, instead wanting a free conversion from the Windows to Linux version?
_____
I'll take a super-thin Toshiba any day of the week over a toilet-seat-lookin' thing like the iBook. :)
_____
According to them, it's DRAM. And in a self-refresh mode, it should be able to maintain its contents for a minute at a time. Check out the info provided by TRG for a more complete description of what is going on.
_____
No, that's not how it works at all. Read the info on TRGpro.com (they discovered the problem). It's just an issue of using an alternative powersaving mode for the DRAM when the Palm is in sleep mode.
_____
No. The issue was that a particular batch of DRAM chips, when used in self-refresh mode, would randomly lose a row of data one time in every 10000 or some (I forget) wake/sleep cycles. The Palm runs the DRAM through a wake/sleep cycle once a minute, so every few days it would just lose some data. The patch just tells the OS to use an alternative method to preserve the data in RAM while in sleep mode instead of the self-refresh mode. It is believed that it _could_ consume slightly more battery power than the normal self-refresh mode, but it doesn't seem to be significant.
Don't make a bigger thing out of this than it is. It could be a lot worse.
_____