The boom in wireless services could destroy the little fiefdoms held by the baby bells. It takes a lot less effort to rent space in a town's bell towers than it does to run copper to every single home. Wireless makes those "last-mile" connections easier and cheaper. Plus, users get the benefit of mobility. The baby bells are milking their strangleholds on the local markets for all their worth, as well as their favor with lawmakers. However, the smart bet is on the companies that are successfully building a foundation for a wireless communications infrastructure.
Integrating Security-Enhanced Linux, the set of kernel and tool extensions to Linux (it is an NSA implementation of the University of Utah Flask secure system architecture) would be a much better Linux enhancement in the long run.
The architecture provides a single mechanism for enforcing security and seperates it from the security policy which can be modified to suit different needs (e.g., you could use it to implement ACLs, RBAC, Chinese Wall, MLS, or other types of security policies).
I seriously doubt Linus would consider integration of the extensions anytime soon because they touch so much of the code base. Plus, it's still on the researchy side of things (you *have* to use RedHat 6.1 or 7.0 to make it work at this point, for example). But once you get it working, it's amazing what kind of potential you can see in the system for enhancing security.
But the mechanism it provides makes it possible to restrict access on a very fine-grained level in a fashion similar to what this article talks about. And it could make the security features of Linux lightyears ahead of what NT provides. It would also be the first free software operating system to provide mandatory access control mechanisms.
BTW, SE Linux is a good example of why the claim that "open source" is never innovative is completely untrue; how proprietary code is and how innovative it is are orthogonal issues.
Machine code is another language. You could even program in it if you felt the masochistic urge. It is a language that is interpreted by a microprocessor. I am perfectly aware of what is normal terminology in "the trade." But compiler is also a computer science term that is much broader than the original poster indicated. A lot of terms in "the trade" change pretty frequently (for example, try to define "operating system" in a manner that cannot be debated). So I don't see the point of jumping on someone because of some terminology usage just because it offends some arrogant programmer.
Get off your fsking high horse. The definition of a compiler is a little more broad than what you've given.
A compiler takes something in language source and translates it into its equivalent in language target. Language target is commonly machine code. However, language could be something like assembly code, C code, or even a TeX DVI file (tex has rightly been called a compiler).
What's the big deal if source is an assembly language instead of a high-level language? Yeah, you might want to be more specific and call it an assembler, but by the accepted definition of a compiler it is in the domain of compilers.
Now, consider your definition of a compiler:
assemblers have to scan source looking for keywords, converting them into tokens and making entries into a symbol table. At least, I would consider "mov" and "add" to be keywords of some sort. And labels definitely need some sort of symbol table. Who cares if it can be translated right away without any processing? It's still translating.
Assemblers can also produce meaningful error messages too within the domain of what a meaningful error message is for assembly code.
Assemblers have to know what you mean when you say "add $r1, $r2, $r3." It's arguably less than knowing what "x = y + z" means, but to that's just because the scope of the assembly and high-level languages differ.
Assemblers generate code typically, amazing.
Some assemblers even perform optimizations. For example, some MIPS assemblers would rearrange instructions to take advantage of branch delay slots.
Basically, an assembler is a compiler by my definition and your definition. So stop the elitist arrogancy because you think you know what is and is not a compiler unlike the so-called uneducated masses.
Consider blind people for a minute. Think about how difficult it is for a person who cannot see to select menu items when doing so largely involves listening to the system name off each menu item. Being able to say "spell check" would be a wonderful time saver for blind people.
And why shouldn't Linux based systems be designed for accessibility? There are many intelligent people for whom the keyboard and mouse requirement is a major obstacle to using computer systems. Programming and system administration tasks are mostly mental tasks, not physical tasks.
As far as questioning the intelligence of executives who greenlight this kind of R&D, you might want to consider that even if very few people can use this kind of software, the companies still gain in potential service contracts ("We just hired this great guy to set up our new-fangled accounting system, but he has a nerve disease that makes it difficult for him to use the keyboard...fortunately, this company has done work in this area and they'll be able to help things work"). They also gain in the community relations.
Do you think Kimberly-Clark would go after a company marketing tissue under the slang term "Kimby-wipes?" They'd probably have a good case because it would be a term that name that would cause confusion in various circles.
One of the great promises of the Internet was that it would form a global community, free from geographical boundries. Information was to flow freely from country to country without the permission of local governments.
Unfortunately, the reality is that if you are doing business on the Internet, then that global presence you have created means that you are under the jurisdiction of all these other governments. Since it is possible to discriminate between users accessing data from one country or another, businesses can comply with these court orders and this means that information no longer travels over the Internet free of political boundries.
This is not great, but it is better to discriminate against users in select countries then to self-censor and discriminate against the entire world.
Re:Selling modified boogie bass would not infringe
on
Boogie Bass Hacked
·
· Score: 1
Trademarks would only be a problem if he claimed that it was an original "Boogie Bass." If it was clearly a modified item, that would not be a problem. Copyright law (as well as patent law possibly) would only be a problem if he started manufacturing new fish instead of buying them, modifying them, and selling the modified versions. Patent law might be a problem if the company has filed a patent on boogie bass that lets you change what they say, but only after the patent has been cleared and the person making these modifications has been notified. In that case, he would need to license the patent in ordert to modify and sell the boogie bass.
But in any case, this company is likely to act a little more intelligently about people selling modified versions of its product than companies in the entertainment or software industries. This company manufactures a good. Why someone buys it, whether to use "as is" or to modify and resell, does not affect the bottom line. If they get more sales from people buying modified bass who would otherwise not buy a regular bass (I personally would not buy either of them...they're rather tacky and obnoxious), then they are not going to make a big fuss about it.
Selling modified boogie bass would not infringe
on
Boogie Bass Hacked
·
· Score: 1
The company loses the right to tell you what you can do with your boogie bass once they sell it to you. You may be unable to manufacture new boogie basses due to possible copyright, patent, and trademark infringements. However, as long as the modifier of the boogie bass does not claim that it is an unmodified boogie bass, then the company that manufactured it would have no real legal claim to prevent the modified boogie bass's sale.
Note that it is a little different in the software world because software developers normally do not sell their products, but merely "license" them. This practice is legally questionable, but has been used to prevent selling modified copies of software such as Windows.
BTW, IANAL, so I suppose I could be wrong on the boogie bass issue.
They never actually left the Matrix of course. They were simply in a simulation where they thought they were outside the matrix...but it was only a simulation. What a good way to keep people who have the tendency to try to "wake up" from actually waking up: simply make them think they are awake even when they are not.
And who knows what actually happened to people once they "died." It's likely that the Matrix simply put them into an after-life simulation until their physical bodies finally gave out.
BTW, not only was the freedom experienced by the characters of The Matrix an illusion (at all levels), but Neo was really just an AI that did not know that it was an AI. How else do you explain the fact that he was able to react at the speed of the other AIs? Reaction speed is not something that occurs because one has control of the system (unless we consider some Quake client-style manipulation)...it is a result of brain latency which is much more limited than what he was demonstrating at the end.
Now, Novell sponsers a study that shows their main money winner is incredibly better than its new competitor. I think the grain of salt we need to take this with is as big as Utah.
It's not even that big of a grain of salt. It's one the size of Utah County, Utah. Novell likely has people working for them who live farther away then that.
Having said that, their claims are likely not all that outrageous. Remember that the Mindcraft results weren't false, just not very useful because their "real world" tests involved lots of static pages being accessed at ridiculous rates instead of testing dynamic page generation. I'm not up to date with LDAP, but for authentication purposes it's unlikely you would need to authenticate 250 people a second from a single server. And if 1 out of 8 of those people can't log in right away because the server is unreliable...well, in the "real world" 3 out 8 (totally made up numbers) of those people probably mistyped their passwords anyway and would have had to try again.
However, the fact that ActiveDirectory is Win2000 or bust, while NDS is Win2000, Solaris, Linux, et al., (according to Novell of course) is much more important and is more proof that at least one vendor is trying to lock you in while the other is willing to play nicely (underdogs usually are).
Penguins are not pet animals. They require special needs. I think PETA people are out of their mind too? But SLASHDOT IS GETTING PATHETIC, and so are the posters here. If Microsoft had a mascot, and did the same thing, you guys would be up in arms./. credibility is going downhill fast
Did you actually bother reading some of the comments posted? Yes, some people do not care, yet there are plenty of people (myself included) who do not like the idea of misusing animals in such a manner (although, personally, I'm not very zeolous on the subject, especially since I do eat a moderate amount of meat and other animal products which is much worse and affects a larger number of animals).
True, some of the people who show a lack of concern probably would complain if they saw that PETA was after Microsoft for the use of a mascot. But many, if not most, of those who showed little concern would show little concern if Microsoft and PETA were having it out.
As for slashdot "losing credibility," your talking about the part of slashdot that amounts to an editorial bulletin board. If a newspaper publishes a letter to the editor that is pure crap, that does not reduce the newspaper's credibility. In any case, slashdot's main function is linking stories from outside sources that may be of interest. The comments are optional and do not detract from the quality of the outside stories that are linked.
Not to defend MS, but this is actually false. Microsoft does publish it's binary file formats for all of the Office suite on its msdn web site (the Word 97 format is at link and display the TOC). And, before you say that you have to pay for it, that's wrong, too. It is available without a membership to the MSDN. Now that I've said that, I read a passage that makes the file format a little less "open". "To access data within a Word binary file, the file must be opened using the OLE 2.0 docfile APIs, and it must be read with the appropriate docfile APIs." So, it is dependent on the openness of the OLE 2.0 docfile APIs.
The usefuleness of those documents is actually restricted by the MSDN EULA (based on the assumption that accessing MSDN from the MS web site also falls under its EULA). See section 2.1.b which contains this passge:
b. In addition, for the MSDN Library, this EULA grants you, as an individual, a personal, nonexclusive License to make and use an unlimited number of copies of any documentary material ("Documentation"), provided that such copies shall be used only for personal purposes and are not to be republished or distributed (either in hard copy or electronic form) beyond the user's premises and with the following exception: you may use Documentation identified in the MSDN Library as the file format specification for Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Access, and/or Microsoft PowerPoint ("File Format Documentation") solely in connection with your development of software product(s) that operate in conjunction with Windows or Windows NT that are not general-purpose word-processing, spreadsheet, or database management software products or an integrated work or product suite whose components include one or more general-purpose word-processing, spreadsheet, or database management software products. Note: A product that includes limited word-processing, spreadsheet, or database components along with other components that provide significant and primary value, such as an accounting product with limited spreadsheet capability, is not considered to be a "general-purpose" product.
Thus to avoid a potentially expensive lawsuit from MS you really have to do a "clean-room" implementation of document reading and writing. Its really too bad that is is even legal to hold hostage the data someone creates like this.
XML specifies how to store information. It does not specify the meaning of that information. Microsoft could simply not publish Office DTDs and competitors would be unable to determine what constitutes valid formatting and what is completely useless.
One can use custom tags in XML, thus the markups do not have to have any standard logic behind them. A markup tag such as ``MSXML_FFT'' would be very difficult to understand if not properly documented and would require extensive reverse-engineering, which may be illegal, in order to successfully understand its use.
If one truly wanted to be diabolical then one could simply bypass the tags for certain, critical functionality. Dropping in a UUENCODED binary formatting section would definitely add some complexity to a document.
Basically, in order for XML documents to offer a means to opening the doors for competition, the XML document tags must be fully documented. Without a medical dictionary a layperson might have a difficult time reading an advanced medial journal; and without some sort of ``dictionary,'' a programmer not working on MS Office products would probably have a difficult time understanding how the document formatting works.
Actually, I do not know anything about how Office 2000's XML documents are designed. I have not tried Office 2000 or seen any files produced with it. I also do not see anything that even meantions Office 2000 in the April 1999 MSDN library (although some information might exist on Microsoft's site). However, there is some information on the binary formats for Office 97. Unfortunately they are (IMHO) not very good.
iToaster, scheduled to be available July 15, will not be a``Linux machine'' as people normally use the term, despite earlier published reports to the contrary. Rather, the OS is based partly on BeOS, with its multimedia efficiency,
and partly on Linux, with its stability and Internet efficiency...
So basically some people in marketing thought that since Microworkz set this machine up to be stable and to network efficiently, and since Linux is known for stability and network efficiency, that they could say that the system was Linux based. A rather unwise thing to say when a community of supports is willing to pounce on anyone who tries to purloin GPLed code.
Slashdot Mirror
The boom in wireless services could destroy the little fiefdoms held by the baby bells. It takes a lot less effort to rent space in a town's bell towers than it does to run copper to every single home. Wireless makes those "last-mile" connections easier and cheaper. Plus, users get the benefit of mobility. The baby bells are milking their strangleholds on the local markets for all their worth, as well as their favor with lawmakers. However, the smart bet is on the companies that are successfully building a foundation for a wireless communications infrastructure.
Integrating Security-Enhanced Linux, the set of kernel and tool extensions to Linux (it is an NSA implementation of the University of Utah Flask secure system architecture) would be a much better Linux enhancement in the long run.
The architecture provides a single mechanism for enforcing security and seperates it from the security policy which can be modified to suit different needs (e.g., you could use it to implement ACLs, RBAC, Chinese Wall, MLS, or other types of security policies).
I seriously doubt Linus would consider integration of the extensions anytime soon because they touch so much of the code base. Plus, it's still on the researchy side of things (you *have* to use RedHat 6.1 or 7.0 to make it work at this point, for example). But once you get it working, it's amazing what kind of potential you can see in the system for enhancing security.
But the mechanism it provides makes it possible to restrict access on a very fine-grained level in a fashion similar to what this article talks about. And it could make the security features of Linux lightyears ahead of what NT provides. It would also be the first free software operating system to provide mandatory access control mechanisms.
BTW, SE Linux is a good example of why the claim that "open source" is never innovative is completely untrue; how proprietary code is and how innovative it is are orthogonal issues.
Machine code is another language. You could even program in it if you felt the masochistic urge. It is a language that is interpreted by a microprocessor. I am perfectly aware of what is normal terminology in "the trade." But compiler is also a computer science term that is much broader than the original poster indicated. A lot of terms in "the trade" change pretty frequently (for example, try to define "operating system" in a manner that cannot be debated). So I don't see the point of jumping on someone because of some terminology usage just because it offends some arrogant programmer.
Get off your fsking high horse. The definition of a compiler is a little more broad than what you've given.
A compiler takes something in language source and translates it into its equivalent in language target. Language target is commonly machine code. However, language could be something like assembly code, C code, or even a TeX DVI file (tex has rightly been called a compiler).
What's the big deal if source is an assembly language instead of a high-level language? Yeah, you might want to be more specific and call it an assembler, but by the accepted definition of a compiler it is in the domain of compilers.
Now, consider your definition of a compiler:
Basically, an assembler is a compiler by my definition and your definition. So stop the elitist arrogancy because you think you know what is and is not a compiler unlike the so-called uneducated masses.
Consider blind people for a minute. Think about how difficult it is for a person who cannot see to select menu items when doing so largely involves listening to the system name off each menu item. Being able to say "spell check" would be a wonderful time saver for blind people.
And why shouldn't Linux based systems be designed for accessibility? There are many intelligent people for whom the keyboard and mouse requirement is a major obstacle to using computer systems. Programming and system administration tasks are mostly mental tasks, not physical tasks.
As far as questioning the intelligence of executives who greenlight this kind of R&D, you might want to consider that even if very few people can use this kind of software, the companies still gain in potential service contracts ("We just hired this great guy to set up our new-fangled accounting system, but he has a nerve disease that makes it difficult for him to use the keyboard...fortunately, this company has done work in this area and they'll be able to help things work"). They also gain in the community relations.
Do you think Kimberly-Clark would go after a company marketing tissue under the slang term "Kimby-wipes?" They'd probably have a good case because it would be a term that name that would cause confusion in various circles.
One of the great promises of the Internet was that it would form a global community, free from geographical boundries. Information was to flow freely from country to country without the permission of local governments.
Unfortunately, the reality is that if you are doing business on the Internet, then that global presence you have created means that you are under the jurisdiction of all these other governments. Since it is possible to discriminate between users accessing data from one country or another, businesses can comply with these court orders and this means that information no longer travels over the Internet free of political boundries.
This is not great, but it is better to discriminate against users in select countries then to self-censor and discriminate against the entire world.
Trademarks would only be a problem if he claimed that it was an original "Boogie Bass." If it was clearly a modified item, that would not be a problem. Copyright law (as well as patent law possibly) would only be a problem if he started manufacturing new fish instead of buying them, modifying them, and selling the modified versions. Patent law might be a problem if the company has filed a patent on boogie bass that lets you change what they say, but only after the patent has been cleared and the person making these modifications has been notified. In that case, he would need to license the patent in ordert to modify and sell the boogie bass.
But in any case, this company is likely to act a little more intelligently about people selling modified versions of its product than companies in the entertainment or software industries. This company manufactures a good. Why someone buys it, whether to use "as is" or to modify and resell, does not affect the bottom line. If they get more sales from people buying modified bass who would otherwise not buy a regular bass (I personally would not buy either of them...they're rather tacky and obnoxious), then they are not going to make a big fuss about it.
The company loses the right to tell you what you can do with your boogie bass once they sell it to you. You may be unable to manufacture new boogie basses due to possible copyright, patent, and trademark infringements. However, as long as the modifier of the boogie bass does not claim that it is an unmodified boogie bass, then the company that manufactured it would have no real legal claim to prevent the modified boogie bass's sale.
Note that it is a little different in the software world because software developers normally do not sell their products, but merely "license" them. This practice is legally questionable, but has been used to prevent selling modified copies of software such as Windows.
BTW, IANAL, so I suppose I could be wrong on the boogie bass issue.
They never actually left the Matrix of course. They were simply in a simulation where they thought they were outside the matrix...but it was only a simulation. What a good way to keep people who have the tendency to try to "wake up" from actually waking up: simply make them think they are awake even when they are not.
And who knows what actually happened to people once they "died." It's likely that the Matrix simply put them into an after-life simulation until their physical bodies finally gave out.
BTW, not only was the freedom experienced by the characters of The Matrix an illusion (at all levels), but Neo was really just an AI that did not know that it was an AI. How else do you explain the fact that he was able to react at the speed of the other AIs? Reaction speed is not something that occurs because one has control of the system (unless we consider some Quake client-style manipulation)...it is a result of brain latency which is much more limited than what he was demonstrating at the end.
It's not even that big of a grain of salt. It's one the size of Utah County, Utah. Novell likely has people working for them who live farther away then that.
Having said that, their claims are likely not all that outrageous. Remember that the Mindcraft results weren't false, just not very useful because their "real world" tests involved lots of static pages being accessed at ridiculous rates instead of testing dynamic page generation. I'm not up to date with LDAP, but for authentication purposes it's unlikely you would need to authenticate 250 people a second from a single server. And if 1 out of 8 of those people can't log in right away because the server is unreliable...well, in the "real world" 3 out 8 (totally made up numbers) of those people probably mistyped their passwords anyway and would have had to try again.
However, the fact that ActiveDirectory is Win2000 or bust, while NDS is Win2000, Solaris, Linux, et al., (according to Novell of course) is much more important and is more proof that at least one vendor is trying to lock you in while the other is willing to play nicely (underdogs usually are).
Did you actually bother reading some of the comments posted? Yes, some people do not care, yet there are plenty of people (myself included) who do not like the idea of misusing animals in such a manner (although, personally, I'm not very zeolous on the subject, especially since I do eat a moderate amount of meat and other animal products which is much worse and affects a larger number of animals).
True, some of the people who show a lack of concern probably would complain if they saw that PETA was after Microsoft for the use of a mascot. But many, if not most, of those who showed little concern would show little concern if Microsoft and PETA were having it out.
As for slashdot "losing credibility," your talking about the part of slashdot that amounts to an editorial bulletin board. If a newspaper publishes a letter to the editor that is pure crap, that does not reduce the newspaper's credibility. In any case, slashdot's main function is linking stories from outside sources that may be of interest. The comments are optional and do not detract from the quality of the outside stories that are linked.
Not to defend MS, but this is actually false. Microsoft does publish it's binary file formats for all of the Office suite on its msdn web site (the Word 97 format is at link and display the TOC). And, before you say that you have to pay for it, that's wrong, too. It is available without a membership to the MSDN. Now that I've said that, I read a passage that makes the file format a little less "open". "To access data within a Word binary file, the file must be opened using the OLE 2.0 docfile APIs, and it must be read with the appropriate docfile APIs." So, it is dependent on the openness of the OLE 2.0 docfile APIs.
The usefuleness of those documents is actually restricted by the MSDN EULA (based on the assumption that accessing MSDN from the MS web site also falls under its EULA). See section 2.1.b which contains this passge:
Thus to avoid a potentially expensive lawsuit from MS you really have to do a "clean-room" implementation of document reading and writing. Its really too bad that is is even legal to hold hostage the data someone creates like this.
XML specifies how to store information. It does not specify the meaning of that information. Microsoft could simply not publish Office DTDs and competitors would be unable to determine what constitutes valid formatting and what is completely useless.
One can use custom tags in XML, thus the markups do not have to have any standard logic behind them. A markup tag such as ``MSXML_FFT'' would be very difficult to understand if not properly documented and would require extensive reverse-engineering, which may be illegal, in order to successfully understand its use.
If one truly wanted to be diabolical then one could simply bypass the tags for certain, critical functionality. Dropping in a UUENCODED binary formatting section would definitely add some complexity to a document.
Basically, in order for XML documents to offer a means to opening the doors for competition, the XML document tags must be fully documented. Without a medical dictionary a layperson might have a difficult time reading an advanced medial journal; and without some sort of ``dictionary,'' a programmer not working on MS Office products would probably have a difficult time understanding how the document formatting works.
Actually, I do not know anything about how Office 2000's XML documents are designed. I have not tried Office 2000 or seen any files produced with it. I also do not see anything that even meantions Office 2000 in the April 1999 MSDN library (although some information might exist on Microsoft's site). However, there is some information on the binary formats for Office 97. Unfortunately they are (IMHO) not very good.
So basically some people in marketing thought that since Microworkz set this machine up to be stable and to network efficiently, and since Linux is known for stability and network efficiency, that they could say that the system was Linux based. A rather unwise thing to say when a community of supports is willing to pounce on anyone who tries to purloin GPLed code.