I'd like to contribute to the Perl Foundation but would first like to see if they have oportunity for sponsorship opportunities a la sports stadiums in the US.
Basically I'd like to find out what level of contribution it would take to
Have my name introduced as an operator in the language.
Make whitespace significant to syntax
Rename it from Perl to "Carnage4Life: Scripting Edition"
Add C++ templates to the language.
Include the fuck() and unfuck() function calls that do exactly that.
I await the answers to these questions with bated breath.
I found them less enlightening than one of the things he linked to, a FAQ on Palladium and TCPA [cam.ac.uk] that clearly and logically explains the positive and negative effects of the system
Considering that no details have been released about Palladium besides the fact that there is a burgeoning project at Microsoft that will use that as a codename I can't see how anyone can explain Palladium when no one (not even average Microsoft employees like myself) know what the details are. I read it and seemed to simply care about one thing and that was spreading FUD. In fact let's dissect this logical explanation
2. What does TCPA / Palladium do, in ordinary English?
Its obvious application is to embed digital rights management (DRM) technology in the PC. The less obvious implications include making it easier for application software vendors to lock in their users.
Looks like someone has no idea what it does for sure but tells us what it obviously must do. There is a saying about assumption which fits right in here.
4. How does it work?
likely implementation in the first phase of TCPA is a `Fritz' chip - a smartcard chip or dongle soldered to the motherboard.
Again, instead of concrete details we get speculation and assumptions. Maybe that's because there are no details so all one can do is leap to conclusions?
5. What else can TCPA and Palladium be used for?
TCPA can be used to implement much stronger access controls on confidential documents. For example, you might arrange that your soldiers can only create word processing documents marked at `confidential' or above, and that only a TCPA PC with a certificate issued by your own armed forces can read such a document. This is called `mandatory access control', and governments are keen on it. The Palladium announcement implies that the Microsoft product will support this. Once TCPA is widespread, corporations can do this too - and so, for that matter, can the Mafia.
This section is disgustingly similar to the "encryption is bad because terrorists can use it" argument. I guess its OK for such a narrow minded and ignorant viewpoint which has been derided several times to be espoused if one is bashing Microsoft (sorry I meant M$).
I could go on reading the FAQ but it devolves into paranoid conspiracy theories from that point on.
This kind of question really requires Professional Legal Advice and may depend on the context, e.g. is he reimplementing something trivial like a command line argument parser or something non-trivial like highly optimized kernel code for a specific device? Anywhere as for my opinion, I Am Not A Lawyer (IANAL) but the kinds of IP that matter in this case are Copyright & Patents.
Copyright Issues: If his reimplementation of the solution from his former job is a cut & paste of old code to new then there probably most likely are issues since most corporations own copyright on code written by employees. Reimplementing the same strategies from memory should not affect copyright [unless he has a photographic memory].
Patent Issues: If the technology he worked on was patented by your employee's former employer then there will be licensing issues which depend on how he signed over the patent to his former employers.
There are also the Non-compete clauses in employment contracts which although do not strictly have anything to do with IP law can severly restrict what knowledge you can obtain from him and in severe cases may require you to fire him like in the CrossGain vs. Microsoft situation
Except that with Free/Open Source software, you are being paid: you are being paid with fantastic programs that would be impossible for any one individual or company to replicate. Releasing software Free is the appropriate expression of gratitude to the community.
It is interesting to me that an argument using Capitalist concepts as a base to critique Free Software was modded down and a reply that used Marxist (Communist) ideas was modded up. Funny enough, most Slashdotters probably wouldn't realize how much they agree with Marx and Engels Manifesto of the Communist Party and probably would take offence to being described as having communist leanings. I guess it goes to show you how negativity in the popular media can alter perception of ideas that may have some worth in them.
The really interesting thing about Free Software is that it seems to be a microcosm of the only scenario where Communism can be truly workable; when the cost of replication of goods or services of value tends to zero.
The article tries to build from basic economic principles, but conveniently misses one, the problem of free riders.
Actually this is not a failing of the article but a failing of the people the article references. Many people like to think that the reason that Open Source is popular among businesses is because it is "free as in speech" which although being a nice fuzzy-feelgood reason is not a BUSINESS reason. On the other hand, trying to commoditize a certain market while making money of off its complement "giving away the razor and charging for the blades" is a well known tactic amongst business types and is something that can fully be brought to bear with Open Source. In this case Joel's article clearly articulates this point with numerous examples.
However the problem of Free Riders tends to be orthogonal in well executed versions of the "give away razors" strategy. In well executed versions of this strategy, the business is uninterested if the market it has commoditized now has a low barrier to entry as long as there is still a significantly barrier to entry in the market for its complement. Specifically, IBM doesn't care that any Johnny Come Lately can enter the Linux distro business because the same doesn't apply to their consulting or hardware businesses that benefit from the commoditization of the OS.
It's almost ironic that the author pics such dead or dying companies like Netscape, Transmeta, IBM, etc for his examples.. Look, I like these companies as much as anybody for their past, but let's face it..
Anyone who considers IBM to be dead and dying knows nothing about the current state of the software industry.
Below is a repreint of a top ten (plus one) list entitled Top 10 Things I learned from Attack of the Clones that circulated around work that was originally compiled by Dan Charlson.
1. There are no police, or more importantly, traffic cops or highway patrol officers, on Coruscant. Endangering pedestrians and other vehicles is just "no big deal."
2. Six-year old Jedi trainees are so capable with their light sabres that you can group them very tightly together -- even wearing "blast shield helmets" -- and have them swing away at training beacons without any concerns for safety.
3. Saruman can wield a mean light sabre -- although thankfully, he hasn't forgotten how to use telekinesis (but why didn't he do some more body-slamming?!? Wait -whaddyou mean this is Star Wars...?)
4. Just because you put a homing device on your opponent's getaway vehicle does NOT mean you shouldn't also follow him or her into a really dangerous asteroid belt instead of just waiting for him or her to come out the other side (you have a tracking device, remember!) -- of course, on the other hand, flying through asteroid belts at high speed is required in the Star Wars universe. [Thanks to JLyle for this one.]
5. The GSO -- Galactic Standards Organization (the future counterpart to the ISO and W3.org) -- has been so successful that not only have ALL major industrial manufacturers adopted the same data access, networking, and transfer protocols throughout the Republic, but so have secret, guerilla arms factories -- and besides, those same factories wouldn't use security software or electronic countermeasures to defend themselves against network intrusions anyway.
6. Even though the Republic has scads of enormous, elongated wedge-shaped Star Destroyers, you should never put them into high orbit around a planet and use them to prevent enemy starships from taking off, let alone using them offensively as long-range artillery weapons against enemy ground forces. Pitting land force against land force is pretty much the best way to go -- you can always make or get more robot or clone soldiers...
7. C3PO is so well-designed that there are power cells in every major constituent of his body -- including his head. [Thanks to JacobJ for this one.]
8. You don't need to wear a helmet or even goggles while you drive hovercraft, land speeders, or other flying vehicles in a desert environment such as Tatooine.
9. Little Boba Fett is so accustomed to seeing his dad's face only behind his cool helmet that it just wouldn't occur to him to lift the visor or remove the helmet to look at his poor dead dad's decapitated visage (try saying that three times fast!).
10. One's reputation, manner, and conduct just can't be guessed by observation alone -- you need to have a name which transparently broadcasts to all but the stupidest that you're not a nice person: Darth Sidious, Lord Tyranno, Count Dooku (?!?) -- not to mention Darth Maul, etc....
11. Who's the biggest, baddest dude of the whole Galaxy? He's short, he's green, he has thinning hair, and nope -- he doesn't _really_ need that walking stick after all...
While I was at Georgia Tech, a couple of kids decided to see if they could hookup a GPS unit to a Palm and provide functionality that reminded you to do things when you were the in the vicinity of a place where a task could be accomplished.
User Scenario:
Driving back from work. PDA beeps or [voice message] to remind you to pick up some groceries/get an oil change/drop in on a friend/etc when you are near the store/Jiffy Lube/friend's house.
I seem to remember that they had a lot of code written but were hamstrung by the fact that the GPS unit they wanted to attach to the Palm had its release date delayed and the fact that the Palm would have to be "always on" to receive GPS signals was another issue.
I personally felt the article was childish. Windows has a lot of malware that take advantage of gullible users by sending them deceptive emails with enticing attachments. Linux on the other hand typically has more savvy users. However pointing and giggling is what I'd expect from teenage high schoolers flush from teh rush of their first kernel compilation and not a supposed journalist like Roblimo.
PS: Yes, I work for MSFT. Yes, I run both Windows and Linux at home. Yes, I've been hit by a Windows virus once (CodeRed off of a web page) and had my RedHat box r00ted twice before I learned the hard way.
Compromise for interoperability is not destruction
on
F# - A New .Net language
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
Just compare any.NET language with the original, (C++ versus the real thing, F# versus ML etc). What you see is that any language, in order to achive interoperability at this level (including inheritance etc) and thus get access to.NET libraries, needs to be mutated into something different.
Agreed, this is true of any mechanism that allows interoperability. Java does not allow one to effectively utilize benefits of the target platform so that it is interoperable across operating systems. Many would claim that this is a good thing. SOAP and web services are making people similarly compromise to enable building distributed applications something that is accessible to the average developer. Again this is widely considered A Good Thing
Compromise for the sake of interoperability is something that is done all the time. The question typically is whether the amount of compromise is worth the benefits of interoperability.
Only superficially all.NET languages are different, only superficially they are like their originals (syntax etc). In fact all.NET languages are structurally alike, only the syntax is somewhat different.
I'm not sure what you mean by structurally alike but I'll hazard a guess and assume that you meant they are semantically alike. So far I have used 4.NET languages to program; C#, JScript.NET, VB.NET, and Managed C++. Being skeptic I originally assumed that.NET Framework would simply be creating skinnable languages where the syntax may be different but the underlying semantics are mostly unchanged which in fact many claim is the case for VB.NET and C#.
However, the more I used the languages the more I realized that although some similarities existed the core of the languages from my past; JScript and C++ was still in their.NET versions. I can still declare vars in JScript and best of all in managed C++ I get all my favorite C++ constructs (STL, the 4 casts, templates, etc) but can combine them "managed code" to get the benefits of.NET.
Now there are certain compromises such as the fact that the CLR only supports single inheritance (which I believe some research language discussed a while ago on Slashdot found a workaround for) but in my opinion this is a small price to pay to be able to access my C++ objects from VB.NET or my C# objects from JScript.NET. I consider even better that there is one unified class library that I can count on across all the languages besides the language specific ones like the STL or the JScript function library.
Disclaimer: I work for Microsoft but the thoughts expressed in this post are my opinion and do not reflect the opinions, intentions, plans or strategies of my employer
Some bitter journalist forgot to factor in ticket sales which still bring in millions of dollars for artistes. Here are last years numbers
1. U2, $109.7 million
2. 'N Sync, $86.8 million
3. Backstreet Boys, $82.1 million
4. Dave Matthews Band, $60.5 million
5. Elton John and Billy Joel, $57.2 million
6. Madonna, $54.7 million
7. Aerosmith, $49.3 million
8. Janet Jackson, $42.1 million
9. Eric Clapton, $38.8 million
10. Neil Diamond, $35.4 million
11. Matchbox Twenty, $28.4 million
12. Rod Stewart, $27.2 million
13. Jimmy Buffett, $26.9 million
14. Andrea Bocelli, $26.8 million
15. Ozzfest 2001, $26.4 million
16. Sade, $26.2 million
17. Tim McGraw, $24.9 million
18. Britney Spears, $23.7 million
19. James Taylor, $23 million
20. Tool, $20.4 million
No more glamour, the influence, the youth, the hipness, the hookers, the drugs...Yeah right.
SuSE, Caldera, TurboLinux... Their deep wish would actually be sell their products "a la Microsoft" with one license per seat, without providing ISO images and so on. They actually have a very "proprietary" ideal, so they try to offer a not too bad image to the Linux community while acting against its ideals in reality.
I don't work for SuSe but consider it rather slanderous (or is that libelous) for you to claim that they are trying to get a free ride out of the Linux community and usurp the GPL by being proprietary when they have explicitly stated that this is not the case. I can believe that Caldera would be in support of per seat licensing since this doesn't differ much from how Ransom Love has described his business plans but to simply paint other companies that contribute to the Open Source community with the same brush because they want to provide a Linux Standard is extremely unkind.
In my opinion, Red Hat is lucky because they can stay open and make real business, MandrakeSoft is *extremely* innovative in inventing a real business model for Free Software while being a fervent defender of its rules. And SuSE, Caldera... didn't understand anything to Linux/Free Software and are going to be banned by the Linux community, and see their revenues decrease.
It is rather sad that such a glorified troll is currently rated +5. All the companies you mention are trying to make money while giving you Free Software. Quite frankly, people like you are the ones that give Slashdot a bad name and make it seem like the Open Source community is a bunch of unfriendly freeloaders.
By the way, most reckonings indicate that MandrakeSoft is just barely doing well and although Red Hat's financials are good, they are one of the few software-based company to be able to make a living off of Free Software. Even then they've been on the ropes a bit, I don't see why people should begrudge others for trying to find a way to provide Free Software and still make a living or is it that you'd prefer that all the companies you just besmirched created proprietary software?
How to create a profitable business from Free Software is still a black art and in many cases may be impossible but while we are still trying to figure that out I don't think that it is fair to malign the people who are simply trying to make a living while contributing to Free Software.
Recently on Slashdot there was an article complaining about the increasing costs of broadband yet the fact of the matter is that a large number of large telecoms are going out of business because they spent too much, too fast and make too little to keep up with their debts.
Not to be a contrarian, but this just goes to show that things aren't really black and white when it comes to the cost of broadband and in fact we may be getting it cheaply considering how much was spent building the networks.
It's not knew, it's somewhat informative. It's very, very basic.
So what is the point?
I may be biased being the author of the article but don't think the article is pointless. As you point out XML namespaces are a basic aspect of XML yet their ramifications are not understood by many users of XML especially when it comes to interactions with other XML related technologies.
My motivation for writing the article was because I kept seeing people (including supposed experts) show a fundamental lack of understanding of how XML namespaces work especially default namespaces and how the different XML data models interact and cohabit.
For example the differences between the XML infoset, XPath data model and DOM are little known by many users of XML and in fact many people do not know about all 3.
Secondly, the section on namespace caveats highlight errors in thinking I've seen many experienced users of XML not just novices.
However, many people who implement XML technologies and W3C members thought that the article was worthwhile. Now it may be that you are an experienced user of XML and this article is a waste of your time and if so I apologize for the time you lost reading the article.
As it is, I think that time has come. Clearly people no longer thing there's anything to be gained from copyright. I'm inclined to agree. Once, it took a long time to copy a book, and if you 'published' something, copyright was your only protection from other people selling it. But as it is now, the moment you start selling a book, a CD or whatever, you can publish so many copies that there would be no point in others trying to sell the same thing. Once a book is on the store shelves, nobody is going to type up the whole book, lay it out, and print it - there just wouldn't be any point. The person that got their first would be such an advantage due to having a head-start that they'd make tons of money anyway...
This entire paragraph is inconsistent and makes little sense yet the fact that it is currently at +4 insightful just goes to show that any anti-copyright rant no matter how incoherent will be well received on Slashdot. If there was no copyright then the incentive to write books would drop significantly. Currently writing a good book (both fiction and non-fiction) is a significant effort that requires research, perseverance and a large expendition of time.
If after expending n amount of months or years someone can just copy books I author for free then the Opportunity Cost of writring books will become to high for me and I'll find another line of work or write less.
The main problem with rants like yours is that they are throw the baby out with the bath water solutions. Most people agree that life of author + 70 years is an obscene amount of time to hold copyright on an intellectual work and is harmful to society in the long run. Similarly the lengths that content producers are beginning to go to so as to prevent copyright infringement have begun to intrude on the rights of consumers. However saying that intellectual works should be devalued as to where they should be offered no protection is just as harmful to society if not more.
Would you also suggest abolishing the welfare or health systems because there are inefficiencies therein and people who cheat the system? I sincerely hope the answer is no.
I've lost count of the number of times companies have claimed to be "standards compliant" only for this to turn out not to be the case when close scrutiny is applied to the product.
That said, EDG has long been producing the best C++ language compiler in the industry and if anyone could have achieved this I'd expect it to be them. However, running a front page story on Slashdot based on a USENET post lacks editorial judgement.
I thought MSFT didn't like Linux because it competed with Windows?
Having to include source to something they didn't invent and can't get along without is their problem and, like any reasonable minded person, don't want problems. They like to keep it simple, by owning or having license agreements on IP.
On the first read, it looks like most (not all) of his points boil down to IIS sucks compared to Apache and Windows NT sucks compared to Linux. However, these pieces of software taken by themselves do not really say anything about the quality of Open Source versus Proprietary software in general.
One could easily write an article on the poor quality of Open Source software compared to proprietary software if the comparison was Oracle vs. mySQL, Apple's OS X GUI vs. GNOME/KDE, Photoshop vs. GIMP, MSFT Office vs. OpenOffice, etc.
Basically statistics and anecdotes can be used to prop up either side of the argument if one so chose.
However, the article does do one thing well for dispelling anti-OSS FUD by providing a clear, high visibility example of where Open Source Software competes very well with proprietary software. Thus FUD like, "OSS can never be of high enough quality to compete with proprietary software" ready for primetime although dying can now be completely killed by pointing such FUDsters and their victims to that article.
So, for example, 45% of the grade could be the final, 10% for participation/attendance, and 45% for a project written by the student alone in a restricted environment (e.g., a proctored computer lab). Problem solved.
I used to attend Georgia Tech and was a TA for what is widely considered the "weed-out" class in the Computer Science curriculum.
When I took the class as a sophomore we had to implement a reasonable facsimile of GNU make as well as a Lisp to C interpreter in a two week period for about 20% or 30% of our grade. I finished the make project but only did about 80% of the Lisp to C interpreter. However, the knowledge I gained in doing so has helped me all through my programming experience since then. Now I write parsersfor fun
However, due to a massive amount of cheating that went largely unreported the powers that be decided to convert the class to the format that you suggested. Programming assignments were primarily optional homework assignments that contributed little to the overall grade.
What ended up happening is that students left the class with little over basic programming experience (a 2 hour coding quiz does not a l337 h4x0r make) and many people failed the class by simply not doing well on a single test. Considering that test taking is in many cases and excercise in rote memorization, I have significant problems with making it worth anything over 50% of a students grade.
Eventually, I believe someone realized that it was better to let many people cheat and turn out a few decent students than curb cheating via proctored exams but turn out primarily half-baked students even among does that didn't cheat.
PS: The class I am talking about isn't the one that has been getting in the news. GA Tech will probably never run CheatFinder on that class' students (or those in higher classes) because the cheating ratio may be even higher than what is being reported in the Freshman classes.
How about the comment about GPL being viral? BSD allows for copy and paste. If MS can't do that, then the license sucks, right?
The GPL is viral by nature. It's goal is to constantly increase the pool of Free Software while negating the need for proprietary software. Granted the word "viral" has negative conotations while the phrase "increase the pool" has positive connotations but the meaning is the same.
Seconly, we at MSFT (at least on my team) are uninterested in cutting & pasting Open Source code and in fact wouldn't mind giving away source. In fact, this claim is even more ludicrous when one examines exactly how much BSDL source MSFT has ever used (mostly command line utils that a 3rd year college student can write) versus how much source the company has distributed via Shared Source.
Yeah, you may have heard of a little company called Red Hat? How about Mandrake? SuSE? All making money selling OSS - read PROFITABLE
Red Hat has shown only Pro Forma profits which means they're profitable only via the use of accounting tricks. Mandrake is in desperate straits as can be seen by the recent Mandrake club fiasco and a recent statment on their website that claims they are "cash flow positive" for the first time this quarter primarily due to user donations/subscriptions. As for SuSe, I have not looked at closely and thus can rebut so I'll simply assume you have information about their financials that can back up your claims.
Next, for the billionth time: RMS != OSS. And I have yet to hear ANYTHING from MS against RMS, they ignore him. But I don't blame you for trying to detract from the main point of the posts here. Other than detracting from the central topic, your post has little going for it...
MSFT has not made comments against Open Source, they have specifically targetted the GPL. The GPL was authored by RMS and reflects his political and philosphical views. I'm sure you can connect the dots from there. If you can't then that reflects rather poorly on your comprehension skills.
Disclaimer:This post is my opinion and does not reflect the opinions, intentions, strategies or plans of my employer
First of all, there is no way Microsoft can enforce conditions upon the implementation of a standard (read: "standard"). Entering into a contract requires, well, that you enter into a contract.
The above sentence is meaningless. First of all what do you mean by "standard"? A defacto standard like Flash, a standard ratified by a standards body, an industry standard (like Java), or something else? Secondly, regardless of what you meant if MSFT has patents on technology they are well within their rights to license it however they see fit.
Here's the argument that Microsoft and other anti-GPL nutballs are making: "You're not making any money off this, so we want to steal your intellectual property, violate the hell out of your license, and make money from our criminal activities." The underlying, unstated argument is, of course, that unless you're in it for profit, you have no intellectual property rights. This is utter bullshit, of course, and serves only to show what basically unethical and indecent people we're dealing with.
Interesting, I am curious as to what MSFT literature you read that made you come to that conclusion. From what I've seen of the anti-GPL rhetoric that has come out of MSFT, they are primarily against Richard Stallman's political agenda that comes with the GPL. They see nothing wrong with altruistically giving away code (which is what the BSD license and its ilk are about) but licenses like the GPL that attempt to devalue the cost of software are anathema to such people. The GPL drives the cost of software to 0 or at worst the cost of distribution media (just take a look at
Cheapbytes for a living example of this).
This means that any entity that produces GPL software most augment their income in some way be it through moonlighting, consulting, support, selling hardware, etc.
This is not a mere side-effect but was an explicit goal of the GPL which can be garnered by reading Richard Stallman's early writings especially the gunk about software developers should work as waiters so that we can afford to give our software away.
Since the GPL makes it near impossible for an entity to simply produce and sell software as its core business, it is unsurprising that the world's largest software company would be wary of doing
anything that encouraged the spread of this meme. What is surprising is that most observers find
it difficult to realize this and instead of applying Occam's Razor, resort to conspiracy theories
about how MSFT wants to steal their code. Then again this is the same website where people bitch about Slashdot's responsibility to slashdotted webservers and how The Great Slashdot Whine Out will strike a blow for Freedom so maybe I shouldn't be so surprised after all.
Disclaimer:This post reflects my opinions and does not reflect the opinions, strategies, thoughts, plans or intentions of my employer
Is microsoft abandoning their drive to make Passport the authentication mechanism for *everything*, Starbucks and such, or are they just going to drop the pretense of making it an open system?
Passport was a seperate initiative from.NET MyServices (aka Hailstorm). Passport is an authentication mechanism while.NET MyServices was supposed to be a centralized repository of user information (calendar, preferences, inbox, contacts, bookmarks, etc) which could be queried by various vendors who would receive restricted access to the data based on the user's settings.
Is it possible for people to take the hailstorm protocol, if they so desire, and set up an independent, decentralized hailstorm network that just happens to not be affiliated at all with microsoft?
There are a couple of things to consider here. The first being whether there are any intellectual property(IP) issues, I have no idea about this but wouldn't advice anyone to start something like that without at first ensuring there aren't any patents or anything like that being violated. The second thing is exactly how one would use the technology. Personally when I first saw a Hailstorm presentation last summer I kept on thinking that it may face difficulty in gaining widespread acceptance for exactly the same reasons listed in the article; there was no justification for vendors to give up so much control to user information to a third party. One example touted was the ability to move music preferences from website to website but the question never asked is why Amazon.com [for example] would make it easier for users to grab all their painstakingly entered personal preferences and music ratings to CDNow.com or some other online site. I remember emailing the presenter about my thoughts but couldn't follow up since it happened close to the end of my internship. However, it may work within a closed environment like a corporate intranet but then again MSFT already has Exchange which has a lot of the important functionality that would be provided by.NET MyServices like an inbox, contacts, calendar etc.
Was GNOME MONO planning on implementing hailstorm as part of their.net workalike? Are they still going to?
Gnome is not related to Mono. Miguel De Icaza may have founded both but he no longer maintains any packages for Gnome nor does he do much (if any) active development but instead spends most of his energy on Mono.
In conclusion, I find your article nothing more than semi-sophisticated FUD. Fear - Be afraid, that OSS might not be very secure. Uncertainty - Well, if it isn't secure you probably shouldn't deploy it, should you. Use commerical software (and keep my paycheck coming). Doubt - Hmm, well, maybe we should stick with the tried and true, good ole MS. (or IBM if we want to go back in time.)
Interesting. I don't see anywhere in the article where I singled out Open Source software for being more insecure than proprietary software in fact the vulnerability list I show ends up making Solaris (a proprietary product) out to be the worst of all. Secondly my article commends both Debian and OpenBSD, I'd be very amused to see you come up with some Microsoft related conspiracy theory about how Bill Gates and Steve Balmer have decided
Send out astroturfers to tout the security of OpenBSD and Debian.
I went to your site about the "myth" of open source software being more secure, and I see where you point to the Security Focus table to try and prove your point. For the *thousandth* time, that table takes into account every single application that ships with a distribution. Can we lump in all the vulnerabilities for MS Office/Outlook, MS Works, SQL Server, and Exchange into the NT/2000 group?
My article does not compare Microsoft products and any Open Source technologies so I am confused as to where this rant stems from. I do remember linking to the Security Focus table as a way to point out that it is disputable to claim that Linux distros are more secure than Windows.
My actual article uses the Vulnerability Archive to compare UNIX flavors and Linux distributions to point out that the license the software is released under does not have as much of a bearing on whether the software is secure or not. So your rant (and +4 score) are rather unwarranted.
Slashdot Mirror
Basically I'd like to find out what level of contribution it would take to
- Have my name introduced as an operator in the language.
- Make whitespace significant to syntax
- Rename it from Perl to "Carnage4Life: Scripting Edition"
- Add C++ templates to the language.
- Include the fuck() and unfuck() function calls that do exactly that.
I await the answers to these questions with bated breath.Considering that no details have been released about Palladium besides the fact that there is a burgeoning project at Microsoft that will use that as a codename I can't see how anyone can explain Palladium when no one (not even average Microsoft employees like myself) know what the details are. I read it and seemed to simply care about one thing and that was spreading FUD. In fact let's dissect this logical explanation Looks like someone has no idea what it does for sure but tells us what it obviously must do. There is a saying about assumption which fits right in here. Again, instead of concrete details we get speculation and assumptions. Maybe that's because there are no details so all one can do is leap to conclusions? This section is disgustingly similar to the "encryption is bad because terrorists can use it" argument. I guess its OK for such a narrow minded and ignorant viewpoint which has been derided several times to be espoused if one is bashing Microsoft (sorry I meant M$).
I could go on reading the FAQ but it devolves into paranoid conspiracy theories from that point on.
This kind of question really requires Professional Legal Advice and may depend on the context, e.g. is he reimplementing something trivial like a command line argument parser or something non-trivial like highly optimized kernel code for a specific device? Anywhere as for my opinion, I Am Not A Lawyer (IANAL) but the kinds of IP that matter in this case are Copyright & Patents.
Copyright Issues: If his reimplementation of the solution from his former job is a cut & paste of old code to new then there probably most likely are issues since most corporations own copyright on code written by employees. Reimplementing the same strategies from memory should not affect copyright [unless he has a photographic memory].
Patent Issues: If the technology he worked on was patented by your employee's former employer then there will be licensing issues which depend on how he signed over the patent to his former employers.
There are also the Non-compete clauses in employment contracts which although do not strictly have anything to do with IP law can severly restrict what knowledge you can obtain from him and in severe cases may require you to fire him like in the CrossGain vs. Microsoft situation
Except that with Free/Open Source software, you are being paid: you are being paid with fantastic programs that would be impossible for any one individual or company to replicate. Releasing software Free is the appropriate expression of gratitude to the community.
It is interesting to me that an argument using Capitalist concepts as a base to critique Free Software was modded down and a reply that used Marxist (Communist) ideas was modded up. Funny enough, most Slashdotters probably wouldn't realize how much they agree with Marx and Engels Manifesto of the Communist Party and probably would take offence to being described as having communist leanings. I guess it goes to show you how negativity in the popular media can alter perception of ideas that may have some worth in them.
The really interesting thing about Free Software is that it seems to be a microcosm of the only scenario where Communism can be truly workable; when the cost of replication of goods or services of value tends to zero.
The article tries to build from basic economic principles, but conveniently misses one, the problem of free riders.
Actually this is not a failing of the article but a failing of the people the article references. Many people like to think that the reason that Open Source is popular among businesses is because it is "free as in speech" which although being a nice fuzzy-feelgood reason is not a BUSINESS reason. On the other hand, trying to commoditize a certain market while making money of off its complement "giving away the razor and charging for the blades" is a well known tactic amongst business types and is something that can fully be brought to bear with Open Source. In this case Joel's article clearly articulates this point with numerous examples.
However the problem of Free Riders tends to be orthogonal in well executed versions of the "give away razors" strategy. In well executed versions of this strategy, the business is uninterested if the market it has commoditized now has a low barrier to entry as long as there is still a significantly barrier to entry in the market for its complement. Specifically, IBM doesn't care that any Johnny Come Lately can enter the Linux distro business because the same doesn't apply to their consulting or hardware businesses that benefit from the commoditization of the OS.
It's almost ironic that the author pics such dead or dying companies like Netscape, Transmeta, IBM, etc for his examples.. Look, I like these companies as much as anybody for their past, but let's face it..
Anyone who considers IBM to be dead and dying knows nothing about the current state of the software industry.
Below is a repreint of a top ten (plus one) list entitled Top 10 Things I learned from Attack of the Clones that circulated around work that was originally compiled by Dan Charlson.
1. There are no police, or more importantly, traffic cops or highway patrol officers, on Coruscant. Endangering pedestrians and other vehicles is just "no big deal."
2. Six-year old Jedi trainees are so capable with their light sabres that you can group them very tightly together -- even wearing "blast shield helmets" -- and have them swing away at training beacons without any concerns for safety.
3. Saruman can wield a mean light sabre -- although thankfully, he hasn't forgotten how to use telekinesis (but why didn't he do some more body-slamming?!? Wait -whaddyou mean this is Star Wars...?)
4. Just because you put a homing device on your opponent's getaway vehicle does NOT mean you shouldn't also follow him or her into a really dangerous asteroid belt instead of just waiting for him or her to come out the other side (you have a tracking device, remember!) -- of course, on the other hand, flying through asteroid belts at high speed is required in the Star Wars universe. [Thanks to JLyle for this one.]
5. The GSO -- Galactic Standards Organization (the future counterpart to the ISO and W3.org) -- has been so successful that not only have ALL major industrial manufacturers adopted the same data access, networking, and transfer protocols throughout the Republic, but so have secret, guerilla arms factories -- and besides, those same factories wouldn't use security software or electronic countermeasures to defend themselves against network intrusions anyway.
6. Even though the Republic has scads of enormous, elongated wedge-shaped Star Destroyers, you should never put them into high orbit around a planet and use them to prevent enemy starships from taking off, let alone using them offensively as long-range artillery weapons against enemy ground forces. Pitting land force against land force is pretty much the best way to go -- you can always make or get more robot or clone soldiers...
7. C3PO is so well-designed that there are power cells in every major constituent of his body -- including his head. [Thanks to JacobJ for this one.]
8. You don't need to wear a helmet or even goggles while you drive hovercraft, land speeders, or other flying vehicles in a desert environment such as Tatooine.
9. Little Boba Fett is so accustomed to seeing his dad's face only behind his cool helmet that it just wouldn't occur to him to lift the visor or remove the helmet to look at his poor dead dad's decapitated visage (try saying that three times fast!).
10. One's reputation, manner, and conduct just can't be guessed by observation alone -- you need to have a name which transparently broadcasts to all but the stupidest that you're not a nice person: Darth Sidious, Lord Tyranno, Count Dooku (?!?) -- not to mention Darth Maul, etc....
11. Who's the biggest, baddest dude of the whole Galaxy? He's short, he's green, he has thinning hair, and nope -- he doesn't _really_ need that walking stick after all...
While I was at Georgia Tech, a couple of kids decided to see if they could hookup a GPS unit to a Palm and provide functionality that reminded you to do things when you were the in the vicinity of a place where a task could be accomplished.
User Scenario: Driving back from work. PDA beeps or [voice message] to remind you to pick up some groceries/get an oil change/drop in on a friend/etc when you are near the store/Jiffy Lube/friend's house.
I seem to remember that they had a lot of code written but were hamstrung by the fact that the GPS unit they wanted to attach to the Palm had its release date delayed and the fact that the Palm would have to be "always on" to receive GPS signals was another issue.
He Who Is Without Sin Should Cast The First Stone
I personally felt the article was childish. Windows has a lot of malware that take advantage of gullible users by sending them deceptive emails with enticing attachments. Linux on the other hand typically has more savvy users. However pointing and giggling is what I'd expect from teenage high schoolers flush from teh rush of their first kernel compilation and not a supposed journalist like Roblimo.
PS: Yes, I work for MSFT. Yes, I run both Windows and Linux at home. Yes, I've been hit by a Windows virus once (CodeRed off of a web page) and had my RedHat box r00ted twice before I learned the hard way.
Just compare any .NET language with the original, (C++ versus the real thing, F# versus ML etc). What you see is that any language, in order to achive interoperability at this level (including inheritance etc) and thus get access to .NET libraries, needs to be mutated into something different.
.NET languages are different, only superficially they are like their originals (syntax etc). In fact all .NET languages are structurally alike, only the syntax is somewhat different.
.NET languages to program; C#, JScript.NET, VB.NET, and Managed C++. Being skeptic I originally assumed that .NET Framework would simply be creating skinnable languages where the syntax may be different but the underlying semantics are mostly unchanged which in fact many claim is the case for VB.NET and C#.
.NET versions. I can still declare vars in JScript and best of all in managed C++ I get all my favorite C++ constructs (STL, the 4 casts, templates, etc) but can combine them "managed code" to get the benefits of .NET.
Agreed, this is true of any mechanism that allows interoperability. Java does not allow one to effectively utilize benefits of the target platform so that it is interoperable across operating systems. Many would claim that this is a good thing. SOAP and web services are making people similarly compromise to enable building distributed applications something that is accessible to the average developer. Again this is widely considered A Good Thing
Compromise for the sake of interoperability is something that is done all the time. The question typically is whether the amount of compromise is worth the benefits of interoperability.
Only superficially all
I'm not sure what you mean by structurally alike but I'll hazard a guess and assume that you meant they are semantically alike. So far I have used 4
However, the more I used the languages the more I realized that although some similarities existed the core of the languages from my past; JScript and C++ was still in their
Now there are certain compromises such as the fact that the CLR only supports single inheritance (which I believe some research language discussed a while ago on Slashdot found a workaround for) but in my opinion this is a small price to pay to be able to access my C++ objects from VB.NET or my C# objects from JScript.NET. I consider even better that there is one unified class library that I can count on across all the languages besides the language specific ones like the STL or the JScript function library.
Disclaimer: I work for Microsoft but the thoughts expressed in this post are my opinion and do not reflect the opinions, intentions, plans or strategies of my employer
1. U2, $109.7 million
2. 'N Sync, $86.8 million
3. Backstreet Boys, $82.1 million
4. Dave Matthews Band, $60.5 million
5. Elton John and Billy Joel, $57.2 million
6. Madonna, $54.7 million
7. Aerosmith, $49.3 million
8. Janet Jackson, $42.1 million
9. Eric Clapton, $38.8 million
10. Neil Diamond, $35.4 million
11. Matchbox Twenty, $28.4 million
12. Rod Stewart, $27.2 million
13. Jimmy Buffett, $26.9 million
14. Andrea Bocelli, $26.8 million
15. Ozzfest 2001, $26.4 million
16. Sade, $26.2 million
17. Tim McGraw, $24.9 million
18. Britney Spears, $23.7 million
19. James Taylor, $23 million
20. Tool, $20.4 million
No more glamour, the influence, the youth, the hipness, the hookers, the drugs...Yeah right.
Even without concert sales, people are still buying CDs anyway. After all the crap about Eminem's album being pirated before it was released he still managed to sell 1.32 million copies in his first week. I think the reports of the death of the music industry have been greatly exagerrated.
Finally, innovative musicians can parlay their fame into dollars from other means. Just look at Ozzy Osbourne who's about to pull in 20 million for his reality-sitcom.
SuSE, Caldera, TurboLinux... Their deep wish would actually be sell their products "a la Microsoft" with one license per seat, without providing ISO images and so on. They actually have a very "proprietary" ideal, so they try to offer a not too bad image to the Linux community while acting against its ideals in reality.
I don't work for SuSe but consider it rather slanderous (or is that libelous) for you to claim that they are trying to get a free ride out of the Linux community and usurp the GPL by being proprietary when they have explicitly stated that this is not the case. I can believe that Caldera would be in support of per seat licensing since this doesn't differ much from how Ransom Love has described his business plans but to simply paint other companies that contribute to the Open Source community with the same brush because they want to provide a Linux Standard is extremely unkind.
In my opinion, Red Hat is lucky because they can stay open and make real business, MandrakeSoft is *extremely* innovative in inventing a real business model for Free Software while being a fervent defender of its rules. And SuSE, Caldera... didn't understand anything to Linux/Free Software and are going to be banned by the Linux community, and see their revenues decrease.
It is rather sad that such a glorified troll is currently rated +5. All the companies you mention are trying to make money while giving you Free Software. Quite frankly, people like you are the ones that give Slashdot a bad name and make it seem like the Open Source community is a bunch of unfriendly freeloaders.
By the way, most reckonings indicate that MandrakeSoft is just barely doing well and although Red Hat's financials are good, they are one of the few software-based company to be able to make a living off of Free Software. Even then they've been on the ropes a bit, I don't see why people should begrudge others for trying to find a way to provide Free Software and still make a living or is it that you'd prefer that all the companies you just besmirched created proprietary software?
How to create a profitable business from Free Software is still a black art and in many cases may be impossible but while we are still trying to figure that out I don't think that it is fair to malign the people who are simply trying to make a living while contributing to Free Software.
Recently on Slashdot there was an article complaining about the increasing costs of broadband yet the fact of the matter is that a large number of large telecoms are going out of business because they spent too much, too fast and make too little to keep up with their debts.
Global Crossing, PSINet, and STAR all bankrupt while WorldCom, in trouble and Qwest taking a several hundred million dollar loss it looks like the number of telecommunications companies is shrinking fast and it is unclear what will happen to their networks.
Not to be a contrarian, but this just goes to show that things aren't really black and white when it comes to the cost of broadband and in fact we may be getting it cheaply considering how much was spent building the networks.
What is this?
It's not knew, it's somewhat informative. It's very, very basic.
So what is the point?
I may be biased being the author of the article but don't think the article is pointless. As you point out XML namespaces are a basic aspect of XML yet their ramifications are not understood by many users of XML especially when it comes to interactions with other XML related technologies. My motivation for writing the article was because I kept seeing people (including supposed experts) show a fundamental lack of understanding of how XML namespaces work especially default namespaces and how the different XML data models interact and cohabit. For example the differences between the XML infoset, XPath data model and DOM are little known by many users of XML and in fact many people do not know about all 3.
Secondly, the section on namespace caveats highlight errors in thinking I've seen many experienced users of XML not just novices.
However, many people who implement XML technologies and W3C members thought that the article was worthwhile. Now it may be that you are an experienced user of XML and this article is a waste of your time and if so I apologize for the time you lost reading the article.
Thanks for your comments.
As it is, I think that time has come. Clearly people no longer thing there's anything to be gained from copyright. I'm inclined to agree. Once, it took a long time to copy a book, and if you 'published' something, copyright was your only protection from other people selling it. But as it is now, the moment you start selling a book, a CD or whatever, you can publish so many copies that there would be no point in others trying to sell the same thing. Once a book is on the store shelves, nobody is going to type up the whole book, lay it out, and print it - there just wouldn't be any point. The person that got their first would be such an advantage due to having a head-start that they'd make tons of money anyway...
This entire paragraph is inconsistent and makes little sense yet the fact that it is currently at +4 insightful just goes to show that any anti-copyright rant no matter how incoherent will be well received on Slashdot. If there was no copyright then the incentive to write books would drop significantly. Currently writing a good book (both fiction and non-fiction) is a significant effort that requires research, perseverance and a large expendition of time.
If after expending n amount of months or years someone can just copy books I author for free then the Opportunity Cost of writring books will become to high for me and I'll find another line of work or write less.
The main problem with rants like yours is that they are throw the baby out with the bath water solutions. Most people agree that life of author + 70 years is an obscene amount of time to hold copyright on an intellectual work and is harmful to society in the long run. Similarly the lengths that content producers are beginning to go to so as to prevent copyright infringement have begun to intrude on the rights of consumers. However saying that intellectual works should be devalued as to where they should be offered no protection is just as harmful to society if not more.
Would you also suggest abolishing the welfare or health systems because there are inefficiencies therein and people who cheat the system? I sincerely hope the answer is no.
Read the test results of the C/C++ User Journal's compiler roundup.
I've lost count of the number of times companies have claimed to be "standards compliant" only for this to turn out not to be the case when close scrutiny is applied to the product.
A USENET thread claiming that a product is standards complaint has 0 credibility in my book regardless of who stated it. On the other hand passing the C/C++ User Journal's compiler roundup's set of conformance tests from Dinkumware, Perennial and Plum Hall with flying colors is worthy of comment.
That said, EDG has long been producing the best C++ language compiler in the industry and if anyone could have achieved this I'd expect it to be them. However, running a front page story on Slashdot based on a USENET post lacks editorial judgement.
I thought MSFT didn't like Linux because it competed with Windows?
Having to include source to something they didn't invent and can't get along without is their problem and, like any reasonable minded person, don't want problems. They like to keep it simple, by owning or having license agreements on IP.
This statement pretty much is the same conclusion I came to when I first heard the Software Ecosystem Speech from BillG last summer.
On the first read, it looks like most (not all) of his points boil down to IIS sucks compared to Apache and Windows NT sucks compared to Linux. However, these pieces of software taken by themselves do not really say anything about the quality of Open Source versus Proprietary software in general.
One could easily write an article on the poor quality of Open Source software compared to proprietary software if the comparison was Oracle vs. mySQL, Apple's OS X GUI vs. GNOME/KDE, Photoshop vs. GIMP, MSFT Office vs. OpenOffice, etc.
Basically statistics and anecdotes can be used to prop up either side of the argument if one so chose.
However, the article does do one thing well for dispelling anti-OSS FUD by providing a clear, high visibility example of where Open Source Software competes very well with proprietary software. Thus FUD like, "OSS can never be of high enough quality to compete with proprietary software" ready for primetime although dying can now be completely killed by pointing such FUDsters and their victims to that article.
So, for example, 45% of the grade could be the final, 10% for participation/attendance, and 45% for a project written by the student alone in a restricted environment (e.g., a proctored computer lab). Problem solved.
I used to attend Georgia Tech and was a TA for what is widely considered the "weed-out" class in the Computer Science curriculum.
When I took the class as a sophomore we had to implement a reasonable facsimile of GNU make as well as a Lisp to C interpreter in a two week period for about 20% or 30% of our grade. I finished the make project but only did about 80% of the Lisp to C interpreter. However, the knowledge I gained in doing so has helped me all through my programming experience since then. Now I write parsers for fun
However, due to a massive amount of cheating that went largely unreported the powers that be decided to convert the class to the format that you suggested. Programming assignments were primarily optional homework assignments that contributed little to the overall grade.
What ended up happening is that students left the class with little over basic programming experience (a 2 hour coding quiz does not a l337 h4x0r make) and many people failed the class by simply not doing well on a single test. Considering that test taking is in many cases and excercise in rote memorization, I have significant problems with making it worth anything over 50% of a students grade.
Eventually, I believe someone realized that it was better to let many people cheat and turn out a few decent students than curb cheating via proctored exams but turn out primarily half-baked students even among does that didn't cheat.
PS: The class I am talking about isn't the one that has been getting in the news. GA Tech will probably never run CheatFinder on that class' students (or those in higher classes) because the cheating ratio may be even higher than what is being reported in the Freshman classes.
How about the comment about GPL being viral? BSD allows for copy and paste. If MS can't do that, then the license sucks, right?
The GPL is viral by nature. It's goal is to constantly increase the pool of Free Software while negating the need for proprietary software. Granted the word "viral" has negative conotations while the phrase "increase the pool" has positive connotations but the meaning is the same.
Seconly, we at MSFT (at least on my team) are uninterested in cutting & pasting Open Source code and in fact wouldn't mind giving away source. In fact, this claim is even more ludicrous when one examines exactly how much BSDL source MSFT has ever used (mostly command line utils that a 3rd year college student can write) versus how much source the company has distributed via Shared Source.
Yeah, you may have heard of a little company called Red Hat? How about Mandrake? SuSE? All making money selling OSS - read PROFITABLE
Red Hat has shown only Pro Forma profits which means they're profitable only via the use of accounting tricks. Mandrake is in desperate straits as can be seen by the recent Mandrake club fiasco and a recent statment on their website that claims they are "cash flow positive" for the first time this quarter primarily due to user donations/subscriptions. As for SuSe, I have not looked at closely and thus can rebut so I'll simply assume you have information about their financials that can back up your claims.
Next, for the billionth time: RMS != OSS. And I have yet to hear ANYTHING from MS against RMS, they ignore him. But I don't blame you for trying to detract from the main point of the posts here. Other than detracting from the central topic, your post has little going for it...
MSFT has not made comments against Open Source, they have specifically targetted the GPL. The GPL was authored by RMS and reflects his political and philosphical views. I'm sure you can connect the dots from there. If you can't then that reflects rather poorly on your comprehension skills.
Disclaimer:This post is my opinion and does not reflect the opinions, intentions, strategies or plans of my employer
First of all, there is no way Microsoft can enforce conditions upon the implementation of a standard (read: "standard"). Entering into a contract requires, well, that you enter into a contract.
The above sentence is meaningless. First of all what do you mean by "standard"? A defacto standard like Flash, a standard ratified by a standards body, an industry standard (like Java), or something else? Secondly, regardless of what you meant if MSFT has patents on technology they are well within their rights to license it however they see fit.
Here's the argument that Microsoft and other anti-GPL nutballs are making: "You're not making any money off this, so we want to steal your intellectual property, violate the hell out of your license, and make money from our criminal activities." The underlying, unstated argument is, of course, that unless you're in it for profit, you have no intellectual property rights. This is utter bullshit, of course, and serves only to show what basically unethical and indecent people we're dealing with.
Interesting, I am curious as to what MSFT literature you read that made you come to that conclusion. From what I've seen of the anti-GPL rhetoric that has come out of MSFT, they are primarily against Richard Stallman's political agenda that comes with the GPL. They see nothing wrong with altruistically giving away code (which is what the BSD license and its ilk are about) but licenses like the GPL that attempt to devalue the cost of software are anathema to such people. The GPL drives the cost of software to 0 or at worst the cost of distribution media (just take a look at Cheapbytes for a living example of this). This means that any entity that produces GPL software most augment their income in some way be it through moonlighting, consulting, support, selling hardware, etc. This is not a mere side-effect but was an explicit goal of the GPL which can be garnered by reading Richard Stallman's early writings especially the gunk about software developers should work as waiters so that we can afford to give our software away.
Since the GPL makes it near impossible for an entity to simply produce and sell software as its core business, it is unsurprising that the world's largest software company would be wary of doing anything that encouraged the spread of this meme. What is surprising is that most observers find it difficult to realize this and instead of applying Occam's Razor, resort to conspiracy theories about how MSFT wants to steal their code. Then again this is the same website where people bitch about Slashdot's responsibility to slashdotted webservers and how The Great Slashdot Whine Out will strike a blow for Freedom so maybe I shouldn't be so surprised after all.
Disclaimer:This post reflects my opinions and does not reflect the opinions, strategies, thoughts, plans or intentions of my employer
Is microsoft abandoning their drive to make Passport the authentication mechanism for *everything*, Starbucks and such, or are they just going to drop the pretense of making it an open system?
.NET MyServices (aka Hailstorm). Passport is an authentication mechanism while .NET MyServices was supposed to be a centralized repository of user information (calendar, preferences, inbox, contacts, bookmarks, etc) which could be queried by various vendors who would receive restricted access to the data based on the user's settings.
.NET MyServices like an inbox, contacts, calendar etc.
.net workalike? Are they still going to?
Passport was a seperate initiative from
Is it possible for people to take the hailstorm protocol, if they so desire, and set up an independent, decentralized hailstorm network that just happens to not be affiliated at all with microsoft?
There are a couple of things to consider here. The first being whether there are any intellectual property(IP) issues, I have no idea about this but wouldn't advice anyone to start something like that without at first ensuring there aren't any patents or anything like that being violated. The second thing is exactly how one would use the technology. Personally when I first saw a Hailstorm presentation last summer I kept on thinking that it may face difficulty in gaining widespread acceptance for exactly the same reasons listed in the article; there was no justification for vendors to give up so much control to user information to a third party. One example touted was the ability to move music preferences from website to website but the question never asked is why Amazon.com [for example] would make it easier for users to grab all their painstakingly entered personal preferences and music ratings to CDNow.com or some other online site. I remember emailing the presenter about my thoughts but couldn't follow up since it happened close to the end of my internship. However, it may work within a closed environment like a corporate intranet but then again MSFT already has Exchange which has a lot of the important functionality that would be provided by
Was GNOME MONO planning on implementing hailstorm as part of their
Gnome is not related to Mono. Miguel De Icaza may have founded both but he no longer maintains any packages for Gnome nor does he do much (if any) active development but instead spends most of his energy on Mono.
As for your question, Mono is not interested in Passport or Hailstorm and went as far as creating a page about it because people kept on getting misconceptions about it.
Disclaimer:This post is my opinion and does not reflect the views, opinions, intentions or strategies of my employer.
- Star Wars Holiday Special
- The Ewok Adventure
- Ewoks: The Battle for Endor
Of course, an honorory Golden Turkey Award has to go out to the slop that was Star Wars I: The Phantom MenaceFear - Be afraid, that OSS might not be very secure.
Uncertainty - Well, if it isn't secure you probably shouldn't deploy it, should you. Use commerical software (and keep my paycheck coming).
Doubt - Hmm, well, maybe we should stick with the tried and true, good ole MS. (or IBM if we want to go back in time.)
Interesting. I don't see anywhere in the article where I singled out Open Source software for being more insecure than proprietary software in fact the vulnerability list I show ends up making Solaris (a proprietary product) out to be the worst of all. Secondly my article commends both Debian and OpenBSD, I'd be very amused to see you come up with some Microsoft related conspiracy theory about how Bill Gates and Steve Balmer have decided
I'm all ears.
I went to your site about the "myth" of open source software being more secure, and I see where you point to the Security Focus table to try and prove your point. For the *thousandth* time, that table takes into account every single application that ships with a distribution. Can we lump in all the vulnerabilities for MS Office/Outlook, MS Works, SQL Server, and Exchange into the NT/2000 group?
My article does not compare Microsoft products and any Open Source technologies so I am confused as to where this rant stems from. I do remember linking to the Security Focus table as a way to point out that it is disputable to claim that Linux distros are more secure than Windows.
My actual article uses the Vulnerability Archive to compare UNIX flavors and Linux distributions to point out that the license the software is released under does not have as much of a bearing on whether the software is secure or not. So your rant (and +4 score) are rather unwarranted.