Re:I'm disappointed with their choice of OPN
on
DotGNU Meet-a-thon
·
· Score: 2, Informative
I'm sorry to see this sort of comment. It contains a number of untruths. I've recently been trolled a fair amount on OPN for asking for help to stay afloat while I finished setting up a nonprofit corporation to run OPN and to work on other community related projects. The economy has not been kind to me and to some others as well.
Some people are annoyed that I've used global notices. Well, they're pretty annoying, so I can understand their viewpoint.
Some people are irritated that I've asked for voluntary help, personally (not on behalf of OPN or the nonprofit) from the users. I'm sorry they feel that way, but am glad that some of the users have managed to do things like help me keep my apartment.
Nobody is trying to eject me from OPN other than some trolls and some folks who are listening without asking a lot of questions about what they're hearing. All I'll say at this point is something I've said on OPN: rumor, innuendo and ridicule can destroy reputations and ruin good work. If someone tells you something about another person, ask them how they know it and who told them. Go to the original sources; if there are no original sources, think about why the person has none to provide. Think about what people tell you and look for inconsistencies. Anyone's reputation can be damaged by distortions and untruths.
If you want to find out what I've been talking about lately, look here and here. If you're reading about this here, chances are you have not used OPN and I would appreciate your NOT using the PayPal button on that site. Any help I'm asking for, I'm asking from OPN users who know my work, who want to help and who have the means to do so without hurting themselves.
It's worth remembering that your prospective new employers have had time to consider how much they wanted to pay you and get approvals for the salary and benefits. If you rushed them too much or pushed them too hard, it might not turn out to be such a great idea to take the job.
On the other hand, it's practically guaranteed that your current employers were rushed; so can they really afford to pay you your new salary for an extended period of time? They may not know the answer to that question any more than you do.
Your existing employers may have projects you're working on that they don't want to bring someone new up to speed on. So they definitely need you in the short term. But, you've gone job hunting before and you might do it again. Most people like to have some stability to their existence, and employers are no exception. There can be some resentment there, and the fact is, all they really need you for at this point is to get those current projects into shape to hand off. So even with a raise, your current job might not be the most stable thing after you've let them know you've gone out hunting.
Taking a counter-offer may not be all that good an idea.
Personally I'd have preferred their reason to be based on the law instead of popular backlash, but maybe that's a step in the right direction to eventually bring about new legislation.
The DMCA is the law in the US. I don't think we're going to see that changed, other than possibly by people speaking out on the subject. If there's a popular backlash, that says that people have spoken out because they don't think the policy is right. If some functionary simply changes the policy, where's the opportunity for comment? Probably better this way.
I'll be interested in seeing what people think of it. It looks to be a pretty heavily-encapsulated tool compared to make/cvs/etc. This has good and bad points. The LGPL was probably a good choice of license. It's a bit annoying that they don't distribute the source in any form other than a Vesta archival setup, but I'm sure someone will correct that oversight pretty quickly.
Whatever its good points, Sun as an organization would clearly love to be the next Microsoft.
There is an inherent tension between proprietary software vendors and open source projects. Even when developers are employed by both. That's not going to change. When you work for a proprietary software company, your primary customer base is that company. Your primary product is a monetary profit for that company. When you work on an open source project, your primary customer base almost always includes at least one end user, and frequently quite a few. Your product is, well, the software and what it can do.
There are a lot more users than developers in the world, and even developers are users. Open source is good for the user: it's always good to have more choices for support. I think that what is good for the user is a lot more important than what is only good for the developer. Sun has done a lot of good things. But ultimately, it's just another proprietary business with a conventional profit model and a vested interest in the status quo....
Hmmmm. That's that card format that is designed to protect copyrighted content. I'm sure RAM under SD format is just as free as RAM under any other format, but on the whole, I think I'd rather not encourage these people.
Yup, seeking monetary contributions for an IRC network is a pretty hard sell. But before you dismiss the thought out of hand look at
what we are doing and
the philosophy behind our approach. We are here to help people communicate, and some fairly well-known projects, such as Debian GNU/Linux, Jabber, handhelds.org, PocketLinux and Vorbis, find us quite useful. So if someone wants to know whether we can make a case that they should contribute or code for us, well, I think we can make quite a strong one.
You're right that the hostname and IP should probably be hidden, it's on our TODO list. Though it will take some work to do that without causing inconvenience to the users. Uh, by the way, we need a bit of help finishing those patches from people with time on their hands, the urge to contribute, and hybrid-6 experience.:) Anybody who is interested, please check the site....
Hehe, thanks for your concern. We are not using any Disney logos or art work, the title is a *parody* (protected speech) of a story, and I doubt they'll notice or care. I'm sure they would dislike the really bad publicity someone would get from harassing 3,000-or-so really net-savvy, annoyed geeks. And they're really nice people, aren't they?:)
Thanks to everyone who has shown interest so far. What we need more than anything at this point are graphical design people and people comfortable with the technical aspects of things like php and postgresql. Haven't nailed down the design yet, so input on that will be useful, though we do have some ideas. Try to have input on the desirability of the tools you know best.
What we need most, of course, is for people who have time, talent and interest to subscribe to the content contact list and suffer through the initial organizational throes.:)
We're not initially planning to do user forums. I think sites like Slashdot and K5 do as good a job of such things as it's possible to do, and I don't envy them the work that goes into it. What we plan to do is features on the state of people and projects in the community and articles on how the community can leverage its talents in positive ways. It's hoped we can contribute a very community-oriented site and possibly help finance the growth of OPN.
Hope to see you on the mailing list!
Rob Levin
Head of Operations, Open Projects Net
"Open source, open technology, open information"
Have you read the linked articles? I don't think anybody has been able to, since advogato seems to be slashdotted. I would
assume in one of those articles, lilo mentioned that the perpetrator actually is a kid, therefore Taco made that comment... (since
he was able to read it before it got slashdotted, obviously:-P )
Mengmeng,
I'm probably the source of the 'kid' comment. I do not really know the age or gender of the attacker, and intended 'kid' as a description of maturity level than calendar age. Apologies to younger persons reading this, but I have frequently seen 14-year-olds act precipitously without considering the consequences of their actions to others. Obviously, though, maturity varies from person to person, and I've seen adults who never achieved a very impressive level of it either.
While I'm not an advocate of temper tantrums or pushing an entire group when your target is an individual, his or her business,
wallet, pocket- book, whatever... The IRC has proven itself primed for Denial Of Service Attacks for more years then I care to
think about. Combine that with Ron Levin's Anal Retentive behavior exasserbated by his delusions exasserbated yet again by
his history and misbehaving OPN as well as his infuriating antics on the networks which preceeded OPN...
Steve,
As I told you before you were K-lined from Open Projects permanently for displaying this attitude toward hapless users on more than one public channel, Open Projects is supposed to be a friendly place. Your message is an excellent example of why you are persona non grata there now. Please feel free to keep my nick held up on EFNet, the web page you put in your REALNAME field there from time to time is very entertaining.
I propose that we modify our network stack a little to get rid of some of these attacks.
Instead of the three way handshake(TCP's connection intiator) taking place on the content provider lets have it take place on a
new server called a identity verifier. Now when you want to connect to a content server whatever it may be httpd, ftpd,
whathaveyou. You send your tcp request to the verify server. if approved your TCP connection is transfered to the content
server. Now there should be multiple verify servers so that you can't just take them all down( a few thousand should do.). Now
your content provider only accept connections from these trusted verify servers. If one comes from another source it is
dropped. I think we could implement this but i'm busy with another project called dgroups(a decentrallized network) so i am a
little busy. if you have any questions about implementation email me.
It's an interesting concept but I see some problems. First, considering the size of the Internet, a few thousand connection verifiers seems like a needless centralization of traffic. Routing all traffic through a relatively small number of potential failure points is probably a bad idea. Second, how is the handshake between the connection verifier and the content provider verified? Why is that machine automatically trusted? More centralization here, and whoever holds the keys can control comunication. Who decides it's trusted? And third, how do you prevent spoofing?
Given a bit of time I can probably come up with more problems. Regardless, it's good to see people giving the matter some thought....
For years I begged lilo to remove a user known to commit D.O.S attacks against users and me. Instead of doing that he chose
to boot me a few times so that "the environment was not distrubed" How can someone knocking people off the net be less
worse than me bringing it up. Anyways "LILO" now you know how it feels to be helpless against someone launching D.O.S
attacks and mabye you will think twice before giving people the shaft. After I cool down mabye I'll help you crush the little skript
kiddie.
Jason,
Begging your pardon, but this is silly. The reason we don't routinely remove people accused of packeting others is that the logs can be so easily faked. We are not in the business of trying to mediate disputes when we have no way to decide who is the victim and who is the aggressor.
And the real question is , if he is pissed at us, why didn't he just call me, sheeze, it's not like I'm hard to track down.
Chris,
Nothing that skript kiddie said convinced me that VA was responsible for any real problem. I think it unlikely. I mentioned the rationalization because it was such transparent nonsense. Why packet our servers to get back at VA? Why cause our users problems just to annoy one of our sponsors?
I think it more likely that this is simply someone who enjoys creating problems, and clearly has some problems of his or her own.
The internet is fundamentally structurally vulnerable to DoS attacks. It's only a matter of pissing
someone off and getting picked as a target. With the increasing politicization of everything on the
net, the problems will only get worse.
Your points are well-taken. I'm not sure I like any of the solutions you mention. Securing your server only does so much to prevent denial-of-service attacks. Of the rest, the administrative ones put too tight a rein on an essentially anarchic system, and the technical ones take away capabilities. Ultimately, this is why I'm working on Corridors. The skript kiddies have location indirection; the rest of us, clients and servers, need it too.
The thing to realize about the Internet is, realistically, you can't bar someone from a service, you can only choose not to include them.
Why would the US government want to promote the use of an encryption algorithm it couldn't crack?
Haven't been following the candidates, but the winner should be interesting.
...include not buying the product in the first place. Or if you've bought it unknowing, to return it before you open the shrinkwrap on the CD and get your money back. Or if there are no returns, to simply toss out the CD and send an email letting the vendor know you're feel you've been scammed and you're not going to buy their product again.
The only way to deal with the problem is to deal with the problem.
Just so you are aware. irc.linux.com is connected to, and affiliated with, irc.openprojects.net, but is just one server---there are a number of additional ones. On the other hand, linux.com's server handles more clients than most, and it's accessible through a Java chat client on the linux.com web site, so you might find that handy.
The only customers for mainframes have historically been banks, insurance companies, and large fortune 500 companies and colleges who need to manage enormous databases. It's not like your average Joe has big iron in his basement, and banks/insurance companies/colleges aren't about to switch their operating system over, especially when even a minutes' worth of downtime would probably cost a bank several million dollars.
Actually, there's kind of a fallacy operating here. Mainframes date from the era when there were only mainframes. They were expensive and big because computers were expensive and big. I remember the end of that era clearly; I was there.:)
Minicomputers followed. They were somewhat less expensive and newer technology. In theory, a very complete set of applications could have developed for minicomputers, and in fact quite a few applications did, but it became a marketing war, and the pitch was that somehow minicomputers were less capable than mainframes. It was an effective pitch but really there was a lot of marketing hype there.
Finally, as "mainframe" manufacturers began to develop a lot of the same newer technology to keep up with "minicomputer" manufacturers in terms of cost and size, the "personal computer" came along and threw the whole equation into a cocked hat. PC hardware certainly was initially less capable than mainframe hardware; the processor architecture featured such ancient constructs as an accumulator. Missing were things like orthogonal register sets; clean, simple instruction formats; end-to-end error correction.
But nothing said that PC hardware had to be less capable than mainframe hardware; it just didn't matter that it was, since it was inexpensive enough to be bought by multiple users in multiple departments. This allowed departmental users in the corporate world to bypass the huge project backlogs that most IS departments had developed and gave control of much more computing to those departments.
By the present day, it's clear that most computation is done on platforms that are considerably more powerful than the first PC's, but are descended from those platforms. It's also the case that more and more features originally found on mainframes are making their way to PC's, and this trend is likely to continue.
PC variants (not necessarily on Intel architectures) represent "where it's at" because anybody can buy them and stage them for particular applications. They're cheap and easy to operate. So they are certainly likely to accumulate a very rich feature set as time goes on.
The "mainframe versus personal computer" war has never been about hardware capabilities, per se. It's always been about who has control of computing, and clearly the PC won that war. At this point we can regard mainframes such as the S/390 as being relatives of PC's, in that they have to compete in the market to perform the same tasks that PC's routinely perform.
e need what are now called "old fashioned girls" who don't mind cooking our meals, rubbing our sore shoulders, and running our bath water for us. The only women who will do this are Christian, and you know about them. Yuck! Remember, you're pro-choice, you support the UN for peace, you voted for Clinton and now Gore, you care about education, the environment, and the children.
There are a lot of assumptions in your comments. Most of them need a reality check.
(1) All politics occurs in the United States. Most of your comments above have little to do with the rest of the world's politics, even if you shave off the serial numbers and pretend that a 'social democrat' in Europe is the 'same' as a 'liberal' in the U.S. With that in mind, I guess I had better address your fairly limited concerns, i.e., U.S. politics and relationships. 8)
(2) All geeks are stereotypical liberals. Uh, not so. There are lots of libertarians and anarchists and even right-wingers, both the religious and non-religious variety (eh, you didn't notice some right-wingers are not religious?).
(2) The female population is divided into right-wing Christians and left-wing feminists. Erm? If you're not listening to people's political beliefs because they are female, you might be having trouble getting second dates. There is as much variety in women's political viewpoints as men's. But see #1 above.;)
(3) All left-wing women are feminists. This seems intuitive too, but the reality is hardly so simple and stereotypical. Plenty of women who believe in social justice stay home to raise their children. Ask around, somewhere outside of the boundaries of places like Bezerkeley.;)
As a propertarian anarchist who is quite happily married to a libertarian with left-leanings who has a social conscience and is staying home to take care of our child, I can tell you that the world is not as simple a place as you think.;) Oh, and neither of us is a Christian.;)
Slashdot Mirror
I'm sorry to see this sort of comment. It contains a number of untruths. I've recently been trolled a fair amount on OPN for asking for help to stay afloat while I finished setting up a nonprofit corporation to run OPN and to work on other community related projects. The economy has not been kind to me and to some others as well.
Some people are annoyed that I've used global notices. Well, they're pretty annoying, so I can understand their viewpoint.
Some people are irritated that I've asked for voluntary help, personally (not on behalf of OPN or the nonprofit) from the users. I'm sorry they feel that way, but am glad that some of the users have managed to do things like help me keep my apartment.
Nobody is trying to eject me from OPN other than some trolls and some folks who are listening without asking a lot of questions about what they're hearing. All I'll say at this point is something I've said on OPN: rumor, innuendo and ridicule can destroy reputations and ruin good work. If someone tells you something about another person, ask them how they know it and who told them. Go to the original sources; if there are no original sources, think about why the person has none to provide. Think about what people tell you and look for inconsistencies. Anyone's reputation can be damaged by distortions and untruths.
If you want to find out what I've been talking about lately, look here and here. If you're reading about this here, chances are you have not used OPN and I would appreciate your NOT using the PayPal button on that site. Any help I'm asking for, I'm asking from OPN users who know my work, who want to help and who have the means to do so without hurting themselves.
Thanks,
Rob Levin
It's worth remembering that your prospective new employers have had time to consider how much they wanted to pay you and get approvals for the salary and benefits. If you rushed them too much or pushed them too hard, it might not turn out to be such a great idea to take the job.
On the other hand, it's practically guaranteed that your current employers were rushed; so can they really afford to pay you your new salary for an extended period of time? They may not know the answer to that question any more than you do.
Your existing employers may have projects you're working on that they don't want to bring someone new up to speed on. So they definitely need you in the short term. But, you've gone job hunting before and you might do it again. Most people like to have some stability to their existence, and employers are no exception. There can be some resentment there, and the fact is, all they really need you for at this point is to get those current projects into shape to hand off. So even with a raise, your current job might not be the most stable thing after you've let them know you've gone out hunting.
Taking a counter-offer may not be all that good an idea.
Okay, maybe not quite that miniature. :)
I'll be interested in seeing what people think of it. It looks to be a pretty heavily-encapsulated tool compared to make/cvs/etc. This has good and bad points. The LGPL was probably a good choice of license. It's a bit annoying that they don't distribute the source in any form other than a Vesta archival setup, but I'm sure someone will correct that oversight pretty quickly.
There is an inherent tension between proprietary software vendors and open source projects. Even when developers are employed by both. That's not going to change. When you work for a proprietary software company, your primary customer base is that company. Your primary product is a monetary profit for that company. When you work on an open source project, your primary customer base almost always includes at least one end user, and frequently quite a few. Your product is, well, the software and what it can do.
There are a lot more users than developers in the world, and even developers are users. Open source is good for the user: it's always good to have more choices for support. I think that what is good for the user is a lot more important than what is only good for the developer. Sun has done a lot of good things. But ultimately, it's just another proprietary business with a conventional profit model and a vested interest in the status quo....
No H3800 for me, thanks.
XO,
Yup, seeking monetary contributions for an IRC network is a pretty hard sell. But before you dismiss the thought out of hand look at what we are doing and the philosophy behind our approach. We are here to help people communicate, and some fairly well-known projects, such as Debian GNU/Linux, Jabber, handhelds.org, PocketLinux and Vorbis, find us quite useful. So if someone wants to know whether we can make a case that they should contribute or code for us, well, I think we can make quite a strong one.
Thanks,
Rob L.
Toby,
You're right that the hostname and IP should probably be hidden, it's on our TODO list. Though it will take some work to do that without causing inconvenience to the users. Uh, by the way, we need a bit of help finishing those patches from people with time on their hands, the urge to contribute, and hybrid-6 experience. :) Anybody who is interested, please check the site....
Thanks,
Rob L.
Hehe, thanks for your concern. We are not using any Disney logos or art work, the title is a *parody* (protected speech) of a story, and I doubt they'll notice or care. I'm sure they would dislike the really bad publicity someone would get from harassing 3,000-or-so really net-savvy, annoyed geeks. And they're really nice people, aren't they?
Rob L.
Thanks to everyone who has shown interest so far. What we need more than anything at this point are graphical design people and people comfortable with the technical aspects of things like php and postgresql. Haven't nailed down the design yet, so input on that will be useful, though we do have some ideas. Try to have input on the desirability of the tools you know best.
What we need most, of course, is for people who have time, talent and interest to subscribe to the content contact list and suffer through the initial organizational throes. :)
We're not initially planning to do user forums. I think sites like Slashdot and K5 do as good a job of such things as it's possible to do, and I don't envy them the work that goes into it. What we plan to do is features on the state of people and projects in the community and articles on how the community can leverage its talents in positive ways. It's hoped we can contribute a very community-oriented site and possibly help finance the growth of OPN.
Hope to see you on the mailing list!
Rob Levin
Head of Operations, Open Projects Net
"Open source, open technology, open information"
I'm probably the source of the 'kid' comment. I do not really know the age or gender of the attacker, and intended 'kid' as a description of maturity level than calendar age. Apologies to younger persons reading this, but I have frequently seen 14-year-olds act precipitously without considering the consequences of their actions to others. Obviously, though, maturity varies from person to person, and I've seen adults who never achieved a very impressive level of it either.
Rob L.
As I told you before you were K-lined from Open Projects permanently for displaying this attitude toward hapless users on more than one public channel, Open Projects is supposed to be a friendly place. Your message is an excellent example of why you are persona non grata there now. Please feel free to keep my nick held up on EFNet, the web page you put in your REALNAME field there from time to time is very entertaining.
Sincerely,
Rob Levin
aka. lilo
Given a bit of time I can probably come up with more problems. Regardless, it's good to see people giving the matter some thought....
Rob L.
Begging your pardon, but this is silly. The reason we don't routinely remove people accused of packeting others is that the logs can be so easily faked. We are not in the business of trying to mediate disputes when we have no way to decide who is the victim and who is the aggressor.
But thanks for your offer of assistance.
lilo
Nothing that skript kiddie said convinced me that VA was responsible for any real problem. I think it unlikely. I mentioned the rationalization because it was such transparent nonsense. Why packet our servers to get back at VA? Why cause our users problems just to annoy one of our sponsors?
I think it more likely that this is simply someone who enjoys creating problems, and clearly has some problems of his or her own.
Rob L.
The thing to realize about the Internet is, realistically, you can't bar someone from a service, you can only choose not to include them.
Why would the US government want to promote the use of an encryption algorithm it couldn't crack? Haven't been following the candidates, but the winner should be interesting.
...include not buying the product in the first place. Or if you've bought it unknowing, to return it before you open the shrinkwrap on the CD and get your money back. Or if there are no returns, to simply toss out the CD and send an email letting the vendor know you're feel you've been scammed and you're not going to buy their product again.
The only way to deal with the problem is to deal with the problem.
Just so you are aware. irc.linux.com is connected to, and affiliated with, irc.openprojects.net, but is just one server---there are a number of additional ones. On the other hand, linux.com's server handles more clients than most, and it's accessible through a Java chat client on the linux.com web site, so you might find that handy.
Thanks,
Rob Levin
Head of Operations, Open Projects
"Open source, open technology, open information"
Wakko Warner wrote: Actually, there's kind of a fallacy operating here. Mainframes date from the era when there were only mainframes. They were expensive and big because computers were expensive and big. I remember the end of that era clearly; I was there.
Minicomputers followed. They were somewhat less expensive and newer technology. In theory, a very complete set of applications could have developed for minicomputers, and in fact quite a few applications did, but it became a marketing war, and the pitch was that somehow minicomputers were less capable than mainframes. It was an effective pitch but really there was a lot of marketing hype there.
Finally, as "mainframe" manufacturers began to develop a lot of the same newer technology to keep up with "minicomputer" manufacturers in terms of cost and size, the "personal computer" came along and threw the whole equation into a cocked hat. PC hardware certainly was initially less capable than mainframe hardware; the processor architecture featured such ancient constructs as an accumulator. Missing were things like orthogonal register sets; clean, simple instruction formats; end-to-end error correction.
But nothing said that PC hardware had to be less capable than mainframe hardware; it just didn't matter that it was, since it was inexpensive enough to be bought by multiple users in multiple departments. This allowed departmental users in the corporate world to bypass the huge project backlogs that most IS departments had developed and gave control of much more computing to those departments.
By the present day, it's clear that most computation is done on platforms that are considerably more powerful than the first PC's, but are descended from those platforms. It's also the case that more and more features originally found on mainframes are making their way to PC's, and this trend is likely to continue.
PC variants (not necessarily on Intel architectures) represent "where it's at" because anybody can buy them and stage them for particular applications. They're cheap and easy to operate. So they are certainly likely to accumulate a very rich feature set as time goes on.
The "mainframe versus personal computer" war has never been about hardware capabilities, per se. It's always been about who has control of computing, and clearly the PC won that war. At this point we can regard mainframes such as the S/390 as being relatives of PC's, in that they have to compete in the market to perform the same tasks that PC's routinely perform.
(1) All politics occurs in the United States. Most of your comments above have little to do with the rest of the world's politics, even if you shave off the serial numbers and pretend that a 'social democrat' in Europe is the 'same' as a 'liberal' in the U.S. With that in mind, I guess I had better address your fairly limited concerns, i.e., U.S. politics and relationships. 8)
(2) All geeks are stereotypical liberals. Uh, not so. There are lots of libertarians and anarchists and even right-wingers, both the religious and non-religious variety (eh, you didn't notice some right-wingers are not religious?).
(2) The female population is divided into right-wing Christians and left-wing feminists. Erm? If you're not listening to people's political beliefs because they are female, you might be having trouble getting second dates. There is as much variety in women's political viewpoints as men's. But see #1 above. ;)
(3) All left-wing women are feminists. This seems intuitive too, but the reality is hardly so simple and stereotypical. Plenty of women who believe in social justice stay home to raise their children. Ask around, somewhere outside of the boundaries of places like Bezerkeley. ;)
As a propertarian anarchist who is quite happily married to a libertarian with left-leanings who has a social conscience and is staying home to take care of our child, I can tell you that the world is not as simple a place as you think. ;) Oh, and neither of us is a Christian. ;)