A big company or a large organization, say the Army or a Government Agency, can take open-source software, submit it to a full auditing process [not only tests but also reverse engineering] and put in place a strict configuration control policy. They get trusted software and they don't need to depend on anybody else for their security. And probably they save lots of bucks in the process [wrt developing the software from scratch].
Individuals and small companies have neither resources nor skills to do that. Yes, anybody can look to open-source code. But how much it will cost in terms of man-power ? Skilled software engineer time is not a cheap resource.
Therefore, they have to trust someone else. At this point is not a matter of how the software is developed, but of what you choose to trust. It could be the peer-to-peer inspection of Open Source. Or it could be a company that distributes 'Trusted Linux' or 'Trusted BSD'. Or a company distributing a closed source system that they say is trusted.
To be politically correct, now./ has to interview Terry Pratchett. And the first question shall be how he relates to Douglas Adams work. I bet we will get a snappy answer, too.
There are a couple of things in SO 5.1a [download edition] which I found quite strange :
1) It cannot see my mounted fat32 partition (which all other Linux apps could ). How is it? I don't think they have bypassed Linux file-system. My guess is that they have a 'portability layer' over it[since SO runs on Win32 too], and this layer does not work with Linux vfat file system.
2) It works only for the user which owns the SO files. It is not a matter of protection, since I tried 'chmod -R 777'. Is this intentional, as a way to enforce 'personal use only' agreement?
I don't want StarOffice to be my Window Manager. Am I the only one?
I'm with you. But SO is not for us. It is for people which do not ever know what a window manager (or a Desktop Environment) is.
Actually, you could run it directly on the top of a [stripped down]X, and have a workable 'office appliance'. And it can be extended with new Apps (made by SUN, of course).
I always thought that this is the real objective behind SO design : have a new, easier, proprietary desktop metaphor which, togheter with a royalty-free OS like Linux, can replace Windows+Office on cheap PC in many offices.
Thanks. I was wondering if there is a Linux equivalent of the \con\con thingy. Somewere else I found/dev/mouse, but it didn work with me. I'll try this as soon as I go home.
BTW, while I can imagine how the/dev/random trick works, I havent the faintest idea of why reading a non-existing \con\con crashes the FAT. Do you ?
I assume you didn't do your own plumbling or elecrical cabling etc...Surely I didn't mine.
Maintenance is a problem, however. An intranet which would require more than a couple of intervention per year would be prompty dumped in the waste bin.
But the big problem is that people shall find *useful* and convenient things to do with an home intranet. I mean really useful. Not just 'look ma, here is a snapshot of the roast in the oven'.
Now I can see how a family with two [ or more ] internet-active kids would like an intranet which allows them to share the ISP connection. But most of the other things I ear when talking of inetconnected network appliances do not make much sense to me.
Any programmer learns to use name convention to avoid collisions in the name space. If they just used 'term' instead of 'kterm', it woud have clashed with other desktop 'term' applications.
Someone could say that the 'k' prefix is too little ( clashes with kernel namespace ). In fact, GNOME people use the entire desktop name as prefix for the gnome-* applications [ except panel ! ]
No doubt, in this forum full of geniuses we could come with a better solution: My humble contribution : add an 'using' statement in the CLI shells [e.g "using kde: exec terminal"].
How many high-risk jobs on earth could be done using some more evoluted model of this robot?
Telepresence is a technology which might have big impacts on everyday life, and we already have most of the knowledge to make it real.
On the other hand, most employers will consider a man cheaper and more expendable than very expensive hardware. Technology is useless in the hands of a wrong culture... Just think of the Internet.
However, the downside of this is that the server's memory usage is dependant on the complexity of the display, and probably higher on average than that of an X server. On the other hand, application footprint will decrease, so I believe the end result is the same [but I wonder, would it possible to optimize memory storage in the server, e.g. commonising static pixmaps storage?]
This does not have much impact on bandwidth use - all display changes still have to be sent by the client to the server. Last time I read Berlin FAQ, they were speaking of 'high semantic API', so I figured high semanthic == lower bandwidth [since X request/events are very low-semantic]. I never checked the actual API's, however, so maybe you're right.
Personally, I don't care too much about graphic improvements over X, though I like eye-candy, so be it.
The most interesting Berlin idea IMO is the change in the client-server protocol : in Berlin protocol, ASAIK, the presentation details (like repainting a window when exposed ) are in charge of the server. In X, they are in charge of the client ( though they are handled by the toolkit for standard widgets ).
This should greately reduce the communication flow between client and server, therefore making it possible to implement it over low-bandwith connections ( as is the Internet for most people ).
Also, this should also make possible for applications to be truly and easily toolkit-independent.
mirroring an extra 3-4GB per needed snapshot is no option for me since I don't make any real money selling those snapshots
If you are mirroring the stable tree, changes in it are unfrequent.(only security updates, ASAIK, until a new release is made [about once per year] ). You only need to download the sources once, and keep them in case someone asks.
Anyhow, if you don't make changes to the source, nobody is going to bother you. Magazines annex distributions all the time, often without sources.
And if someone asks, Debian archives are still there. And if Debian shut down, you can download sources from the mainstream site.
1 - Record smells of all planets and moons of solar system.
2- Build a cheap device which reverses the process, allowing people to playback the electronic smells. Have this device built-in in consumer PC's / network appliances, just like audio cards.
3 - Set-up the web site and start selling smell of space. Of course, you need to have in place UCITA-like laws to protect your IP.
Oh, I almost forgot :
0 - Go for IPO. Gets huge amount of cash. Then forget about points 1,2,3. After all, nobody is really expecting that you fulfil their expectations, are they?
Actually, I use the binary-only module on both laptop and desktop. I found the module here
It is compiled against kernel 2.2.12, but I use it with 2.2.14 [insmod -f] and didn't notice any problem (apart the modem itself:-) ). Oh, and I use Debian, so the module does not seem to be distribution-dependent.
I imagine that when I switch to 2.2.4, the module will break. For then, I hope the people working on open-source linmodems will have something workable for me (thanks in advance, guys!).
If some company officially supports Linux on a laptop with lucent winmodem, maybe they will keep the module up-to-date. Well, until they think it is profitable, that is.
Anyway, I kept my old external 33.6K, just in case...
It is also, as said elsewhere in this thread, that you can embed in a file whatever icon you want, and that will be the icon shown by windoze. So you can have an executable looking like an AVI ( or JPEG or whatever ).
The information carried by the icon is prominent respect to the one carried by the extension, so many user whould probably believe that a.exe file is an image or a movie, if it looks like one.
I have half an idea of taking an ADLS connection (it's 640 Kb download, 128 Kb upload, ~1.2 KEURO x year ) and share it with the owners of other flats of the same building ( I live in a building with >20 apartments ). This would bring to all us involved internet connectivity at least at the same rate of a fast modem, but 24 hour per day and without telephone bills (yes, here flat-rate internet connections are still a dream for many ).
One major hassle would be connectivity in the building. Mainly for the social engineering needed to persuade non-geeks to put another cable in their walls. Solutions like this could help, if they mature soon enough.
I also though of using inter-phone lines. I know there are products meant for offices internal phone lines. Anybody knows aho fast/good they are?
Re:Practically invisible
on
Orbitsville
·
· Score: 1
I don't have the book at hand [ in theory, I'm still working:-) ], but IIRC they actually bumped in it (knowing only the general area of the universe where it was).
I read this book many years ago. Actually, Orbitsville is a trilogy ( a real one, with only three episodes ). Episode I is quite good. Then things go a bit mystics, though I still enjoyed it.
If you are after the 'sci' of 'scifi', Asimov or Larry Niven might be a better reading [IANAS]. If you, like me, are after the 'fi' , you could quite like the Orbitsville saga.
Unless the original post is a troll itself, that is. The original post seems too polite to be true, but I actually answered a question very close to this on a newbies forum, so my estimates are : 55% Troll 45% True.
Anybody knows if the speed of changes in gravitational field has been tested somehow?
Re:Obselence -- Something to fear?
on
Too Old To Code?
·
· Score: 1
I've found that in order to stay competitive, one must never stop learning. That may even include changing jobs in order to successfully find the training you are seeking.
True. But, in my experience, self-training is often under-evaluated by people who do the selection. They don't want to be the first to risk you on a new technology. The want people that already have experience on that technology ( or young people that they can pay nothing while training them ).
And of course, if you cannot change, you cannot acquire experience on new fields and you are stuck with the old job.
Slashdot Mirror
as far as the political contrast is full on the open, to be judged by everybody, and there are no hidden reasons behind it.
A big company or a large organization, say the Army or a Government Agency, can take open-source software, submit it to a full auditing process [not only tests but also reverse engineering] and put in place a strict configuration control policy. They get trusted software and they don't need to depend on anybody else for their security. And probably they save lots of bucks in the process [wrt developing the software from scratch].
Individuals and small companies have neither resources nor skills to do that. Yes, anybody can look to open-source code. But how much it will cost in terms of man-power ? Skilled software engineer time is not a cheap resource.
Therefore, they have to trust someone else. At this point is not a matter of how the software is developed, but of what you choose to trust. It could be the peer-to-peer inspection of Open Source. Or it could be a company that distributes 'Trusted Linux' or 'Trusted BSD'. Or a company distributing a closed source system that they say is trusted.
To be politically correct, now ./ has to interview Terry Pratchett. And the first question shall be how he relates to Douglas Adams work. I bet we will get a snappy answer, too.
Multi-file editing (and opening each file only once)
Integrated editing/compiling/debugging
Availability on both development and target platform
Shall accept files written with other tools and shall generate files which can be modified with other tools
Useful:
Syntax highlighting
Search by variable/function/classes
Version control
MMI visual editor
Optional:
Graph generation
Project management
Conclusions : I'm quite happy with Emacs, but I might taste somenting different from time to time.
1) It cannot see my mounted fat32 partition (which all other Linux apps could ). How is it? I don't think they have bypassed Linux file-system. My guess is that they have a 'portability layer' over it[since SO runs on Win32 too], and this layer does not work with Linux vfat file system.
2) It works only for the user which owns the SO files. It is not a matter of protection, since I tried 'chmod -R 777'. Is this intentional, as a way to enforce 'personal use only' agreement?
I'm with you. But SO is not for us. It is for people which do not ever know what a window manager (or a Desktop Environment) is.
Actually, you could run it directly on the top of a [stripped down]X, and have a workable 'office appliance'. And it can be extended with new Apps (made by SUN, of course).
I always thought that this is the real objective behind SO design : have a new, easier, proprietary desktop metaphor which, togheter with a royalty-free OS like Linux, can replace Windows+Office on cheap PC in many offices.
It's educative for the developers which want to learn about a new field;
It's more fun that studying other people code;[ and many still do open-source coding for fun], especially if said code has little or no ducumentation.
On the long run, it generates fresh ideas that might prove useful ( think of the Berlin project ).
Moreover, some time two different groups of developers are different in too many ways to work toghether.
MIME types
User Personal Menus [at least]
Window Manager Hints
CORBA [if any, it should be common]
Drag'n'drop
Components model
BTW, while I can imagine how the /dev/random trick works, I havent the faintest idea of why reading a non-existing \con\con crashes the FAT. Do you ?
Maintenance is a problem, however. An intranet which would require more than a couple of intervention per year would be prompty dumped in the waste bin.
But the big problem is that people shall find *useful* and convenient things to do with an home intranet. I mean really useful. Not just 'look ma, here is a snapshot of the roast in the oven'.
Now I can see how a family with two [ or more ] internet-active kids would like an intranet which allows them to share the ISP connection. But most of the other things I ear when talking of inetconnected network appliances do not make much sense to me.
Someone could say that the 'k' prefix is too little ( clashes with kernel namespace ). In fact, GNOME people use the entire desktop name as prefix for the gnome-* applications [ except panel ! ]
No doubt, in this forum full of geniuses we could come with a better solution:
My humble contribution : add an 'using' statement in the CLI shells [e.g "using kde: exec terminal"].
Telepresence is a technology which might have big impacts on everyday life, and we already have most of the knowledge to make it real.
On the other hand, most employers will consider a man cheaper and more expendable than very expensive hardware. ... Just think of the Internet.
Technology is useless in the hands of a wrong culture
On the other hand, application footprint will decrease, so I believe the end result is the same [but I wonder, would it possible to optimize memory storage in the server, e.g. commonising static pixmaps storage?]
This does not have much impact on bandwidth use - all display changes still have to be sent by the client to the server.
Last time I read Berlin FAQ, they were speaking of 'high semantic API', so I figured high semanthic == lower bandwidth [since X request/events are very low-semantic].
I never checked the actual API's, however, so maybe you're right.
The most interesting Berlin idea IMO is the change in the client-server protocol : in Berlin protocol, ASAIK, the presentation details (like repainting a window when exposed ) are in charge of the server. In X, they are in charge of the client ( though they are handled by the toolkit for standard widgets ).
This should greately reduce the communication flow between client and server, therefore making it possible to implement it over low-bandwith connections ( as is the Internet for most people ).
Also, this should also make possible for applications to be truly and easily toolkit-independent.
If you are mirroring the stable tree, changes in it are unfrequent.(only security updates, ASAIK, until a new release is made [about once per year] ). You only need to download the sources once, and keep them in case someone asks.
Anyhow, if you don't make changes to the source, nobody is going to bother you. Magazines annex distributions all the time, often without sources.
And if someone asks, Debian archives are still there. And if Debian shut down, you can download sources from the mainstream site.
2- Build a cheap device which reverses the process, allowing people to playback the electronic smells. Have this device built-in in consumer PC's / network appliances, just like audio cards.
3 - Set-up the web site and start selling smell of space. Of course, you need to have in place UCITA-like laws to protect your IP.
Oh, I almost forgot :
0 - Go for IPO. Gets huge amount of cash. Then forget about points 1,2,3. After all, nobody is really expecting that you fulfil their expectations, are they?
It is compiled against kernel 2.2.12, but I use it with 2.2.14 [insmod -f] and didn't notice any problem (apart the modem itself :-) ). Oh, and I use Debian, so the module does not seem to be distribution-dependent.
I imagine that when I switch to 2.2.4, the module will break. For then, I hope the people working on open-source linmodems will have something workable for me (thanks in advance, guys!).
If some company officially supports Linux on a laptop with lucent winmodem, maybe they will keep the module up-to-date. Well, until they think it is profitable, that is.
Anyway, I kept my old external 33.6K, just in case ...
The information carried by the icon is prominent respect to the one carried by the extension, so many user whould probably believe that a .exe file is an image or a movie, if it looks like one.
One major hassle would be connectivity in the building. Mainly for the social engineering needed to persuade non-geeks to put another cable in their walls. Solutions like this could help, if they mature soon enough.
I also though of using inter-phone lines. I know there are products meant for offices internal phone lines. Anybody knows aho fast/good they are?
I read this book many years ago. Actually, Orbitsville is a trilogy ( a real one, with only three episodes ). Episode I is quite good. Then things go a bit mystics, though I still enjoyed it.
If you are after the 'sci' of 'scifi', Asimov or Larry Niven might be a better reading [IANAS]. If you, like me, are after the 'fi' , you could quite like the Orbitsville saga.
Unless the original post is a troll itself, that is.
The original post seems too polite to be true, but I actually answered a question very close to this on a newbies forum, so my estimates are : 55% Troll 45% True.
One reason for which telecommuting is not widely adopted is that it would make most suits obsolete.
Anybody knows if the speed of changes in gravitational field has been tested somehow?
True. But, in my experience, self-training is often under-evaluated by people who do the selection. They don't want to be the first to risk you on a new technology. The want people that already have experience on that technology ( or young people that they can pay nothing while training them ).
And of course, if you cannot change, you cannot acquire experience on new fields and you are stuck with the old job.
That's GREAT!
Unless the only reason for it is that Wine people had zero time for upgrading their web site ...