The High Energy Magic division of U.U. is currently hard at work researching a way to make peoples' minds less resistant to idea quantums. Unfortunately, being based on magic rather than technology (as is the Clacks), it is unlikely this will ever work on minds on our planet, where it's needed far more than on the Disc.
Maybe our world would benefit more of an "idea quantums filter", since I see plenty of bad ideas implemented - or attemped to.
Second, there's really no point to discussing the "true meaning" of a word.
You now, sometime fighting over words is intentional and meaningful. You take a word and subvert its meaning (or restore its original but fotgotten meaning) bucause you want to show people that wat they tought as bad is actually good.
This is the case I believe of anarchy:anarchists try to resurrect the political meaning of the word, because they want people re-evaluate the concept behind that word.
For large projects, use test driven development
on
Guido Goes Google
·
· Score: 1
Alhough I used python only on one-man projects, I think the answer is : test driven development. When I use python for more than an utility script, I take the time to add a test section to each module, which attempts to test all module code. This way, when I change something in the module, I rerun the test and see if it still works (I often have to change the test code also). The test code is also a nice way to demonstrate how to use the module.
This is a good practice with any kind of language, since compiler checking doesn't give you guarantee that the code works. With very high level languages like Python it is easier to keep this practice: you just have to reinvest some of the devlopment time that Python allows you to save in implementing and mantaining a good test framework. You will end with a net gain in development time anyway, AND with a very robust code that will give you very little trouble during final integration, qualification and maintenance.
"The security faults we are seeing could end up bringing an end to the era of personal computing,"
We have made all the money we could out of PC market, so there is no reason to keep the market alive. Let's move to something new that be can exploited".
"The ability to customize our computers is under attack from those who are customizing it against our will."
We will never be able to enforce content-protection measures if people expect to be able to tweak their computers as they please. So better start teaching everybody that a computer is just a sealed box to perform specific tasks, an electronic appliance not differen from VCR, cellphones and playstations. The more people accept that, the more easy will be for us to use their computers for our own purposes.
What if they (the evil ones) read slashdot and have placed on the site some content
exploiting mozilla flaws
and/or
opera exploits (uhmmm, this thime google got a bit confused )
Well, it is not like IE, but one million installation is something serious. And if you target gecko, you can add Mozilla and Galeon users. Therefore, it is better to double the attention on the security issues.
Something has been done but we all know this is a never ending story.
And since the good guys cannot always win (unless you live in an hollywood movie), it is time to prepare a nice chroot jail in which to run our beloved browser (and maybe the mail client as well).
Take it from an italian that never voted for Berlusconi an never will: the article you linked is quite approximative, and arrogantly so.
The political party of Mr. Fini (which also is not one of my favorite politicians) has made a long way from its facist inheritance and it is now simply a very right-wind but democratic party, like there are in many EU countries and elsewhere. This was not without 'pain', sice this caused its most extremist supporters to leave it and create one even more right-wind and still slightly facist (lead by Musolini's grand-daughter).
Italian politics is quite complex (often uselessy so); simplifying it like the liked article do lead to grossolane mistakes.
Afterall, the "from" field is a total free-response section in SMTP with no need to authenticate that you're really associated with the address you claim to be.
This could be addressed by a signature header in the e-mail. While it would not solve all spam problems, it could allow a certain identification of e-mail sources, and maybe lead to better filters.
They probalbly do not realize the file is a trojan (I don't think this troyan is opening pop-up or such, just opening a TCP/IP connection and send a few bytes through it). They download it, try to open it, see that nothing (apparently) starts and decide to share it nevertheless, maybe looking for someone more knowledgeable that can tell them what they did wrong.
the wording saying that Copyright and disclaimer and acknowldge shall be in the same place and form as other copyright, license and disclaimer information
Apparently, many people read these changes as a request that any application linking the X library shall add an explicit acknowledge that their work
is derived from XFree86 work in the documentation
(and in the code, if they have other such statements in it).
If only XFree86 exempts the linking of XLib from this constraint, this whole bubble will go 'pop'. I hope that egos and politics don't gey in the way.
Disnel also tried, maybe is still trying, other ways to distribute their(?) contents directly to the masses. For instance, This idea seems quite interesting.
I did not read the article, but the quoted statement is grossly inaccurated:
ASAIK, it has been demonstrated that mydoom did not target SCO, only appeared to;
obscure software company named SCO? : well, this is almost fun:-)
open Net : what is it ?
so called open source : like it has not been around for more than ten years, sponsored by companies like IBM and Oracle, and several times mentioned by mainstream press;
which is seeking to limit the influence of companies like SCO and the industry giant, Microsoft : it makes it sound like open source main goal is to fight SCO/Microsft/other software giants. No mention of promoting open and free collabotration in writing software, which is _the_ main purpose of free software and open source, as a quick reading of the official sites would have shown to any reporter caring to do an half-decent piece.
The advantage of having phone+camera+mp3player+gamepad in one, is that you only have a small device that fits in your pocket, instead of having to carry a satchel with all four. So that if you see something nice on your way, you can always take a picture (admittedly of poorer quality than it would be with the camera). And if you have an unplanned long wait ahead, you can always kill time playing or listening to music. For me, that hate carrying along bags, this is a bonus. For this, and to make practice with J2ME & Co, I broke my golden rule "A phone is to make phone call" and bought a fancy phone-with-all-bells-on (but I'm not sure I will do it again).
I Agree 100%.
But here it is another thought: computers today are under-used and mis-used (at least around here). If more people (not computer scientists and engineers) would know more about what a computer is, they could come up with some good idea about how to use computers in their work/hobby/life.
In this sense, increasing computer literacy could empower the users.
but in your chain for Gnome, namely GNOME > Bonobo > Orbit > LibrSVG > GTKX11 > GTK back end > Glib > X11 > CPU > GPU > Display
you include Bonobo & Orbit, which are not part
ogf GTK+ last time I checked and only come into play
for inter-process communications (in such situations, I believe KDE also uses Kparts or whatever has substituted it).
BTW, you are only counting software layer by name, while you should consider how 'deep'(read: average number of internal sub-layer) each layer is: two tin layers can be faster of a thick one.
I am not saying that GNOME is faster than KDE: only that your example show nothing.
I might agree on that: software (open or proprietary) is a means, not an end.
But, free software is an end: it means an enrichment of the body of public and freely available knowledge by adding to it valuable software packages(which are basically detailed knowledge formalised in a computer language).
And the existence of a rich body of freely available knowledge is vital for any modern society (what if math and physics were IP-protected? ).
Therefore, choosing between proprietary software and free software is a matter to weighting between the short-term benefits that the first may still offer (a more refined product, a easier learning curve) and the long-term benefits of the second (no lock-in or artificial obsolescence,
more control, but mainly an enrichment of the know-how inside the organisation that adopt the free software package).
Private citizens and short-budget business may have to focus on the short-term advantages, but large companies and government organisation should
also (or mainly) be concerned with the long-term ones.
You don't have to release changes you make to a GPL'd program. The GPL only affects the terms you can release changes under.
But it is always been doubtful if an 'internal distribution' (e.g. to the employees of a company) is to be considered 'use' or 'distribution'. Theoretically any employee that receives a copy of a modified GPL program to use could legitimately ask for the source code and freely distribute copies of it (ok, he could be fired just after that, but still... ).
Speaking of China (~1MPeople IIRC), it is a bit difficult pretend that they are not distributing, even though they only use the modified GPL code in government offices...
Copyrighted windows code infiltrating Linux (or other OSS)codebase would be a legal disaster, giving MS reasons to do, with winning arguments, what SCO is trying to do without (apparently) any success.
I hope that mantainers of open-source code will be extra-careful with any contribution coming from people that could have been tainted by looking at windows code.
You would need something to preload the most heavy KDE shared libraries at boot time and keep them in memory.
Some slow-to-start program (e.g. galeon) can be started in 'daemon mode' to speed up the GUI start-up response (most of the initialization time is done by the daemon at boot time).
But it should not be difficult to make a program that just ldopen() a bunch of shared libraries and then stays alive (dunno if it will be swapped out, however).
If there is some KDE program that does not display anything but still uses most of the KDE libraries, it could be started as a service with a fake account, just to keep those libraries in memory.
Slashdot Mirror
Maybe our world would benefit more of an "idea quantums filter", since I see plenty of bad ideas implemented - or attemped to.
You now, sometime fighting over words is intentional and meaningful. You take a word and subvert its meaning (or restore its original but fotgotten meaning) bucause you want to show people that wat they tought as bad is actually good.
This is the case I believe of anarchy:anarchists try to resurrect the political meaning of the word, because they want people re-evaluate the concept behind that word.
This is a good practice with any kind of language, since compiler checking doesn't give you guarantee that the code works. With very high level languages like Python it is easier to keep this practice: you just have to reinvest some of the devlopment time that Python allows you to save in implementing and mantaining a good test framework. You will end with a net gain in development time anyway, AND with a very robust code that will give you very little trouble during final integration, qualification and maintenance.
We have made all the money we could out of PC market, so there is no reason to keep the market alive. Let's move to something new that be can exploited".
"The ability to customize our computers is under attack from those who are customizing it against our will."
We will never be able to enforce content-protection measures if people expect to be able to tweak their computers as they please. So better start teaching everybody that a computer is just a sealed box to perform specific tasks, an electronic appliance not differen from VCR, cellphones and playstations. The more people accept that, the more easy will be for us to use their computers for our own purposes.
But maybe this can be avoided. Vulture Capitalists have notoriusly a short attention span, and if we find something to distract them ...
What if they (the evil ones) read slashdot and have placed on the site some content exploiting mozilla flaws and/or opera exploits (uhmmm, this thime google got a bit confused )
And since the good guys cannot always win (unless you live in an hollywood movie), it is time to prepare a nice chroot jail in which to run our beloved browser (and maybe the mail client as well).
Well, it is. IANANES, but this is what "over priced" mean in my book: that it costs more than its (perceived) value. :-)
I read SF & Fantasy (the one about wzards), and other books rich in fantasy, to keep growing instead of starting getting old.
It worked quite well for the first 40 years :-)
If you don't trust us, why should we trust you?
Would you accept the same treatment when crossing another nation borders?
Take it from an italian that never voted for Berlusconi an never will: the article you linked is quite approximative, and arrogantly so.
The political party of Mr. Fini (which also is not one of my favorite politicians) has made a long way from its facist inheritance and it is now simply a very right-wind but democratic party, like there are in many EU countries and elsewhere. This was not without 'pain', sice this caused its most extremist supporters to leave it and create one even more right-wind and still slightly facist (lead by Musolini's grand-daughter).
Italian politics is quite complex (often uselessy so); simplifying it like the liked article do lead to grossolane mistakes.
This could be addressed by a signature header in the e-mail. While it would not solve all spam problems, it could allow a certain identification of e-mail sources, and maybe lead to better filters.
You could do something like: configure apache to use port 12567 and the remap that port to port 80 using iptables. Never tried, but should work.
They probalbly do not realize the file is a trojan (I don't think this troyan is opening pop-up or such, just opening a TCP/IP connection and send a few bytes through it).
They download it, try to open it, see that nothing (apparently) starts and decide to share it nevertheless, maybe looking for someone more knowledgeable that can tell them what they did wrong.
Apparently, many people read these changes as a request that any application linking the X library shall add an explicit acknowledge that their work is derived from XFree86 work in the documentation (and in the code, if they have other such statements in it).
If only XFree86 exempts the linking of XLib from this constraint, this whole bubble will go 'pop'. I hope that egos and politics don't gey in the way.
I'm start to think that the existence of the competition is one of the reasons for the licence changing. Maybe they want more visibility.
Disnel also tried, maybe is still trying, other ways to distribute their(?) contents directly to the masses. For instance, This idea seems quite interesting.
The advantage of having phone+camera+mp3player+gamepad in one, is that you only have a small device that fits in your pocket, instead of having to carry a satchel with all four. So that if you see something nice on your way, you can always take a picture (admittedly of poorer quality than it would be with the camera). And if you have an unplanned long wait ahead, you can always kill time playing or listening to music. For me, that hate carrying along bags, this is a bonus. For this, and to make practice with J2ME & Co, I broke my golden rule "A phone is to make phone call" and bought a fancy phone-with-all-bells-on (but I'm not sure I will do it again).
I Agree 100%.
But here it is another thought: computers today are under-used and mis-used (at least around here). If more people (not computer scientists and engineers) would know more about what a computer is, they could come up with some good idea about how to use computers in their work/hobby/life.
In this sense, increasing computer literacy could empower the users.
GNOME > Bonobo > Orbit > LibrSVG > GTKX11 > GTK back end > Glib > X11 > CPU > GPU > Display
you include Bonobo & Orbit, which are not part ogf GTK+ last time I checked and only come into play for inter-process communications (in such situations, I believe KDE also uses Kparts or whatever has substituted it).
BTW, you are only counting software layer by name, while you should consider how 'deep'(read: average number of internal sub-layer) each layer is: two tin layers can be faster of a thick one.
I am not saying that GNOME is faster than KDE: only that your example show nothing.
I might agree on that: software (open or proprietary) is a means, not an end.
But, free software is an end: it means an enrichment of the body of public and freely available knowledge by adding to it valuable software packages(which are basically detailed knowledge formalised in a computer language).
And the existence of a rich body of freely available knowledge is vital for any modern society (what if math and physics were IP-protected? ).
Therefore, choosing between proprietary software and free software is a matter to weighting between the short-term benefits that the first may still offer (a more refined product, a easier learning curve) and the long-term benefits of the second (no lock-in or artificial obsolescence, more control, but mainly an enrichment of the know-how inside the organisation that adopt the free software package).
Private citizens and short-budget business may have to focus on the short-term advantages, but large companies and government organisation should also (or mainly) be concerned with the long-term ones.
But it is always been doubtful if an 'internal distribution' (e.g. to the employees of a company) is to be considered 'use' or 'distribution'. Theoretically any employee that receives a copy of a modified GPL program to use could legitimately ask for the source code and freely distribute copies of it (ok, he could be fired just after that, but still ... ).
Speaking of China (~1MPeople IIRC), it is a bit difficult pretend that they are not distributing, even though they only use the modified GPL code in government offices ...
I hope that mantainers of open-source code will be extra-careful with any contribution coming from people that could have been tainted by looking at windows code.
Some slow-to-start program (e.g. galeon) can be started in 'daemon mode' to speed up the GUI start-up response (most of the initialization time is done by the daemon at boot time).
But it should not be difficult to make a program that just ldopen() a bunch of shared libraries and then stays alive (dunno if it will be swapped out, however).
If there is some KDE program that does not display anything but still uses most of the KDE libraries, it could be started as a service with a fake account, just to keep those libraries in memory.