This intellectual property thing is really getting out of hand. Does this mean that we are not allowed to apply whatever we learn from school and university unless we are given "permission" by the teachers and professors? What about the ancient Greeks? Did they give permission to professors to write textbooks and make money off it? Just about everything in modern science and technology we owe to the ancient Greeks. We should start paying the Greeks royalties for using their ancestors' ideas!:-)
What will they do if they caught ol' Billy on one of those IRC channels?? Seeing that M$ has a long history of stealing ideas from others... I wouldn't be surprised if they actually stole software, stuck their MS copyright notice on it, then resold it.:->
This is probably off-topic... but this is one of the reasons I switched to Linux/opensource products. Why pirate when you can get GPL's software -- legal yet free products, which often is higher-quality than commercial equivalents? Before I knew about Linux and opensource, I was a frequent WaReZ visitor... (How else would a poor penniless student be able to afford the latest games and apps on windows?) Not anymore, because I've found better things. (ie. opensource software). IMNSHO warez channels are for those poor people oppressed by the "M$ regime" who have no choice but to pirate in order to survive. Let them see the beauty of opensource!:-)
Much on the contrary, because it does limit contributors to those with sufficient skill, this guarantees that the result will have a very high quality. This automagically filters out people who either aren't skilled enough or people who don't have the time to make significant contributions. So the people who are able to contribute are those who are able to make the most significant contributions. This is not a problem with Open Source; this is its advantage!!
I've used VisualAge on NT too, and I didn't like it... too much of a feature bloat, with a clumsy interface. I suppose hardcore people like me are more comfortable with the command-line JDK compiler...
On the other hand, it's good that these "user-friendlier" apps are being developed for Linux. At least Linux is slowly making inroads to being a desktop environment for non-techs. This is good, and should be encouraged, because Linux is about choice, and there should be a wide range of different choices that suit different people, eg., command-line interface for techies like me, and "dumber" GUI apps for people who don't want to bother with learning arcane commands.
Adding more choice is always a good thing, because there is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all when it comes to systems. (It's more of a one-size-fits-few.)
Has anyone considered what part of the HURD is the "operating system"? Is only the microkernel the OS, or do you also consider the interfaces that run on top of it part of the OS too? What about the daemons that run on top of the interfaces? If we consider the interfaces and daemons as part of the OS, what would we consider a new interface that a user has built and started up?
Just something to think about... AFAIK the original designers of Mach considered the microkernel as the "OS", (and I tend to take that view as well), but it seems the distinction is rather blur when you talk about GNU/HURD which runs a UNIX interface(?)/OS(?) on top of Mach.
I don't understand why people are patenting such kind of ideas. I am working on a Web project as well, and I had a similar idea: filling out templates with live data to optimize server response time. This is so ridiculous. I mean, anyone working on Web projects who have a brain are likely to come up with ideas similar to this -- who gave them to right to patent it and deny other's right to use what they came up with? It's not like this is some "deep" and "sophisticated" technique that takes a genius to figure out. Anyone could have come up with a similar technique and they would be "infringing" the patent. I think patents like these are just sick. I might as well have gone and patented linked-lists and charged royalty to every university that teaches linked-lists. Disgusting.
There are *billions* of people out there in PRC. I have a friend from PRC who told me that in the recent past many entrepreneurs who wanted to bring the benefits of the Internet to the people were stopped by the government. Nevertheless, so many people there are virtually dying to get their hands on something wonderful like Linux. Now if they legalize the use of Linux there, think about billions of people there that would be reached -- Linux will take off!! M$ will never be able to beat this if it happens.
Although, if this doesn't turn out right, the PRC government might just force people to use their own "customized" (read, bugged) version of Linux without access to source code. After all, who would enforce the GPL with them?? This will be *really* bad for Linux then... Hope this never happens!
Y2K reminds of M$ marketing: way too much hype, but when it comes, there's nothing much to it.:-)
I'm not ignorant of the possibility of problems, but I don't think anything major will happen. Much like M$ promises with each new release of winbloxe to revolutionize the way we compute. Well, the winbloxes came and went, and the world still went on as before.
Interestingly enough, shortly after we published the aforementioned article, our servers were taken down by a concerted effort of thousand of hackers.
ROTFL... Oh yeah, hackers indeed we are!:-) Funny how "they" and "us" seem live on two totally different planets, yet some words from our dictionary seem to be spelt the same as unrelated words in theirs.:-)
I've never liked Windows, from day one. I grew up on the ancient Apple II, then during the "IBM days" switched to DOS 3. In my mind, DOS at least did what it was supposed to do, and did it well. (Mostly because it was easily sidestepped:-)
Then out came Win3.1. I despised it, and basically stayed away from it. Then came Win95. I hated it to the uttermost. I loved DOS then, because at least it let me do what I wanted to do. Win95 imposed all kinds of silly restrictions on me in the name of "protection" yet does not let me do what I wanted to do. I stuck with DOS as long as I could, then realized that it was the end of the road.
Then someone introduced me to Linux. Being ignorant that anything existed outside MS then, I was reluctant to leave DOS (though I couldn't care crap about winbloxe) to use the then-difficult-to-install Linux. Besides, I knew from using Solaris at school that Linux will have memory protection and stuff, which meant I couldn't play with hardware I/O as I've done in DOS.
But then I realized that protection was good, when it was done right. Wincrap for sure didn't do it right -- the "protection" it gives is extremely flakey, and it doesn't give anything in return. Linux gave real protection -- and gave immense power at the same time. From that time on, it was bye-bye windows all the way. I still had win95 on another partition then, but after my HD crashed, my new HD is completely Linux. Not once have I regretted this decision. No more will MS crapware pollute my system!:-)
In my mind, Debian embodies the future of free (as in non-commercial) OS's. Debian is secure, stable, and has high-quality. And it achieved this not by commercial organizations, but by volunteers who did it because they wanted to, not because it brings food to their table.
This, to me, encapsulates what free software is all about -- volunteers producing high-quality products, potentially higher-quality than any commercial offering, and gives it away for free. The ultimate expression of the free software philosophy.
So surely Debian -- the community as opposed to an individual -- deserves this award.
Talk is cheap. Anyone in BG's position would probably come up with more or less the same defense. When you are in such exalted positions, you can say anything you want. But it doesn't mean anything. What do you have to show for your talk? MS has not convinced me one bit that their products match their words. That's why I'm using Linux, and I'm proud of it.
I tried loading it in netscape... the poll disappears, but the checkbox buttons are still there. I resorted to lynx instead -- you just have to allow all cookies and everything seems fine, you can vote, all right. Just that the results take forever to load.
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This intellectual property thing is really getting out of hand. Does this mean that we are not allowed to apply whatever we learn from school and university unless we are given "permission" by the teachers and professors? What about the ancient Greeks? Did they give permission to professors to write textbooks and make money off it? Just about everything in modern science and technology we owe to the ancient Greeks. We should start paying the Greeks royalties for using their ancestors' ideas! :-)
What will they do if they caught ol' Billy on one of those IRC channels?? Seeing that M$ has a long history of stealing ideas from others... I wouldn't be surprised if they actually stole software, stuck their MS copyright notice on it, then resold it. :->
This is probably off-topic... but this is one of the reasons I switched to Linux/opensource products. Why pirate when you can get GPL's software -- legal yet free products, which often is higher-quality than commercial equivalents? Before I knew about Linux and opensource, I was a frequent WaReZ visitor... (How else would a poor penniless student be able to afford the latest games and apps on windows?) Not anymore, because I've found better things. (ie. opensource software). IMNSHO warez channels are for those poor people oppressed by the "M$ regime" who have no choice but to pirate in order to survive. Let them see the beauty of opensource! :-)
Much on the contrary, because it does limit contributors to those with sufficient skill, this guarantees that the result will have a very high quality. This automagically filters out people who either aren't skilled enough or people who don't have the time to make significant contributions. So the people who are able to contribute are those who are able to make the most significant contributions. This is not a problem with Open Source; this is its advantage!!
I've used VisualAge on NT too, and I didn't like it... too much of a feature bloat, with a clumsy interface. I suppose hardcore people like me are more comfortable with the command-line JDK compiler...
On the other hand, it's good that these "user-friendlier" apps are being developed for Linux. At least Linux is slowly making inroads to being a desktop environment for non-techs. This is good, and should be encouraged, because Linux is about choice, and there should be a wide range of different choices that suit different people, eg., command-line interface for techies like me, and "dumber" GUI apps for people who don't want to bother with learning arcane commands.
Adding more choice is always a good thing, because there is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all when it comes to systems. (It's more of a one-size-fits-few.)
Has anyone considered what part of the HURD is the "operating system"? Is only the microkernel the OS, or do you also consider the interfaces that run on top of it part of the OS too? What about the daemons that run on top of the interfaces? If we consider the interfaces and daemons as part of the OS, what would we consider a new interface that a user has built and started up?
Just something to think about... AFAIK the original designers of Mach considered the microkernel as the "OS", (and I tend to take that view as well), but it seems the distinction is rather blur when you talk about GNU/HURD which runs a UNIX interface(?)/OS(?) on top of Mach.
I don't understand why people are patenting such kind of ideas. I am working on a Web project as well, and I had a similar idea: filling out templates with live data to optimize server response time. This is so ridiculous. I mean, anyone working on Web projects who have a brain are likely to come up with ideas similar to this -- who gave them to right to patent it and deny other's right to use what they came up with? It's not like this is some "deep" and "sophisticated" technique that takes a genius to figure out. Anyone could have come up with a similar technique and they would be "infringing" the patent. I think patents like these are just sick. I might as well have gone and patented linked-lists and charged royalty to every university that teaches linked-lists. Disgusting.
There are *billions* of people out there in PRC. I have a friend from PRC who told me that in the recent past many entrepreneurs who wanted to bring the benefits of the Internet to the people were stopped by the government. Nevertheless, so many people there are virtually dying to get their hands on something wonderful like Linux. Now if they legalize the use of Linux there, think about billions of people there that would be reached -- Linux will take off!! M$ will never be able to beat this if it happens.
Although, if this doesn't turn out right, the PRC government might just force people to use their own "customized" (read, bugged) version of Linux without access to source code. After all, who would enforce the GPL with them?? This will be *really* bad for Linux then... Hope this never happens!
Y2K reminds of M$ marketing: way too much hype, but when it comes, there's nothing much to it. :-)
I'm not ignorant of the possibility of problems, but I don't think anything major will happen. Much like M$ promises with each new release of winbloxe to revolutionize the way we compute. Well, the winbloxes came and went, and the world still went on as before.
Interestingly enough, shortly after we published the aforementioned article, our servers were taken down by a concerted effort of thousand of hackers.
ROTFL... Oh yeah, hackers indeed we are! :-) Funny how "they" and "us" seem live on two totally different planets, yet some words from our dictionary seem to be spelt the same as unrelated words in theirs. :-)
I've never liked Windows, from day one. I grew up on the ancient Apple II, then during the "IBM days" switched to DOS 3. In my mind, DOS at least did what it was supposed to do, and did it well. (Mostly because it was easily sidestepped :-)
Then out came Win3.1. I despised it, and basically stayed away from it. Then came Win95. I hated it to the uttermost. I loved DOS then, because at least it let me do what I wanted to do. Win95 imposed all kinds of silly restrictions on me in the name of "protection" yet does not let me do what I wanted to do. I stuck with DOS as long as I could, then realized that it was the end of the road.
Then someone introduced me to Linux. Being ignorant that anything existed outside MS then, I was reluctant to leave DOS (though I couldn't care crap about winbloxe) to use the then-difficult-to-install Linux. Besides, I knew from using Solaris at school that Linux will have memory protection and stuff, which meant I couldn't play with hardware I/O as I've done in DOS.
But then I realized that protection was good, when it was done right. Wincrap for sure didn't do it right -- the "protection" it gives is extremely flakey, and it doesn't give anything in return. Linux gave real protection -- and gave immense power at the same time. From that time on, it was bye-bye windows all the way. I still had win95 on another partition then, but after my HD crashed, my new HD is completely Linux. Not once have I regretted this decision. No more will MS crapware pollute my system! :-)
-- Happy Linuxer
In my mind, Debian embodies the future of free (as in non-commercial) OS's. Debian is secure, stable, and has high-quality. And it achieved this not by commercial organizations, but by volunteers who did it because they wanted to, not because it brings food to their table.
This, to me, encapsulates what free software is all about -- volunteers producing high-quality products, potentially higher-quality than any commercial offering, and gives it away for free. The ultimate expression of the free software philosophy.
So surely Debian -- the community as opposed to an individual -- deserves this award.
Talk is cheap. Anyone in BG's position would probably come up with more or less the same defense. When you are in such exalted positions, you can say anything you want. But it doesn't mean anything. What do you have to show for your talk? MS has not convinced me one bit that their products match their words. That's why I'm using Linux, and I'm proud of it.
I tried loading it in netscape... the poll disappears, but the checkbox buttons are still there. I resorted to lynx instead -- you just have to allow all cookies and everything seems fine, you can vote, all right. Just that the results take forever to load.