Why are Linux people sometimes so caught up with a siege mentality? "Oh no! MS is spreading FUD about Linux again! Hurry up guys, we need to counter their unfounded FUD, otherwise they may FUD Linux out of existence!"
IMHO if Linux is really that good, it doesn't matter what people say about it. One day its true value will be manifested. Talk is cheap. It's too easy to talk and spread FUD and anti-FUD. How 'bout something real, people? Let MS waste their time and resources FUDding away. If Linux is really worthwhile, people's opinion of it will not matter, as long as the Linux community continues working on improving it.
Although there is the need to educate people so that they know they have choice outside MS and so on, we shouldn't get caught in the crossfire between MS FUD and anti-MS FUD. Let them FUD all they want; let's just present the facts to people and not be unduly provoked by what those people say about us. One day, people who believed in the FUD and people who spread the FUD will realize that they were totally wrong about Linux. But by then Linux would have left them far, far behind and it would be their turn to play catch-up.
Well, there are both sides to the story. OT1H my personal choice of Linux distro will always be Debian, because I think the Debian philosophy is closest to Linux's Open Source roots: everything done by volunteers, no commercial $$$ bottomline driving you to compromise, but genuinely interested programmers and developers adding quality to the system.
OTOH being a volunteer community means that if nobody's willing to volunteer in a particular area, you've a problem. IMHO this is where commercial distros like RedHat are a good "motivation": they are commercial, so they can hire people to do a job that they see is necessary, but where nobody seems to be volunteering. As a result, the commercial distro gets the new feature/tool, which causes somebody out there to think, "hey won't it be nice if we had a similar tool in our free distro". Bingo, now you have a volunteer to do the job. (Of course, in most scenarios like this we'd probably just adapt the package from the commercial distro, assuming it's GPL'd, so there's no reduplication of effort. Another beauty of Open Source.)
I've been living off unstable for over a year now, from hamm through slink now on potato.:-) It did break a few times.. some people probably remember that notorious bash/libreadline breakage, for example, and the dependency nightmares when migrating from libc5 to glibc2 (libc6). But other than the occasional glitch, "unstable" is pretty much stable, and up-to-date system. One thing I learned is that when upgrading "critical" packages like bash/libreadline, libc6, dpkg, to name a few, these should be done separately from upgrading the rest of the system and monitored more carefully. This way, you get to immediately fix problems with the critical packages, without having your system crippled by other partially-upgraded packages whose installation stopped because one of the "critical" packages broke something.
"Another frog in the well croaks indignantly against in protest against construction workers who are unearthing the century-old useless well. Joining a whole crowd of other frogs in the well, insisting that the construction workers respect their rights to the well, and the water therein. But some day, the bulldozer will smash through the old well walls, and concrete poured in as they finish the basement of a new high-rise to be."
Not another pathetic attempt to put the genie back into the bottle. When will people get out of their well and realize that the Information Age cannot be shoe-horned into traditional industrial models? Copy-protection is an old, obsolete concept that just doesn't fit in the modern context of the Internet and the Information Age. This new era is about sharing information, not hiding it. It's about making things available to people, and opening up choices by allowing fair competition to your trade. It's a new set of rules that sells services instead of hogging commidities. Trying to fight this will only shoot themselves in the foot, real hard.
And here we have yet another obviously traditional, "orthodox" company talking about "increasing encryption key size", while not realizing that the weak link is the fact that information is actually being displayed through the DVD player -- hence it's copiable. They're clinging on to old principles that are quickly becoming obsolete. Pathetic.
People who intend to survive in the new millenium better break out of their old mentality, and learn to play by the new rules. And they better learn this before the concrete is poured into their well. Time for them to get out of the well and look for higher, better things.
This is why those legislators and officials should keep their hands off the internet. Any attempt to "rigorize" something as organic as this would only result in hampering the Internet's development and growth.
The part about planting Kansas with the same grain illustrates one thing: we need choice in the software world. Why do such things like the Melissa virus spread so easily? Because of One Particular Vendor who sells software with crappy security, unnecessary, bloated features, and tries to make everyone use One Platform for Everything. Basically, trying to feed the world off one grain of wheat. Will that work? No. There is no such thing as one-size-fits-all. The Internet is about choice. We need to fight against the (rather bleak, to me) scenario that the majority of the Internet is "dominated by MS". Although this is not entirely accurate, it still exemplifies an unfortunate reality.
Obviously MS isn't going to endorse the write-once-run-anywhere philosophy of Java. But why did they pick it up in the first place? Riding Java hype, perhaps? Anyway, I think this incident is a good sign. MS embraced Java, extended it, and almost got to the exterminate stage... good thing Sun fought up to it and stopped their nonsense. One more protocol not polluted by MS.
Now, if only this would happen more often, for more protocols/standards. Monstrosities as IE-specific HTML, or even Netscape-specific HTML is just... grotesque. Remember the original, unpolluted HTML? I remember learning it back then... there was this emphasis on using logical markups rather than physical -- ie., use tags that express the structure of the contents, rather than express the physical appearance. Well, look at HTML now: almost every bit of "logical structure" is gone from the tags, just about everything is used to control formatting. And recently there some people expressed a desire for web content to be more content-based than visual-based. Well, HTML was supposed to have provided that context, but it was polluted.
What we need are universal protocols and standards, but variety of implementations. MS got it twisted the wrong way -- they make their own incompatible protocol extension, non-universally accepted, and locks it onto their implementation. Then they turn around and say, "wouldn't it be better if everyone just used one OS, one implementation, and our version of the protocol?" I have nothing against MS doing Java. If they stuck to the same standard. But I do have something against MS when they pollute the standard and use that to lock in the consumer market.
(And of course, the above applies not just to MS but anyone else.)
Gee, didn't Gore patent n-click Internet browsing (since he invented the Internet)?
Wait, isn't there a patent for n-click Computer Usage, owned by the inventor of the Mouse? Did somebody say "prior art"? but doesn't the poor guy have a right to defend his online position and his business plan?!?!
\end{sarcasm}
(Disclaimer: I have no political motives other than to spin humor at the expense of politicians.)
Sure, usually when "real" leading-edge (or bleeding edge) technology gets to common people like us, it has been "there" for long years. (Though, in the software world the timescale is many months rather than many years). It always takes somebody to take the step to implement something based on that technology so that it is accessible to the public.
Just like most new OS technology/concepts usually goes around only in academic circles for a while, before somebody in the industry decides to actually use it to produce "real" OS's for people to use. (Eg. witness how many years behind Windows is in terms of OS design? Even Linux is still based on macrokernel design, and very few people even know about Hurd which is based on microkernels -- arguably the "front-line" of OS research. But by now, there's probably already something newer.).
It's always easy to criticize in retrospect (yeah Cisco didn't do anything like, new, this MMDS stuff's been around for 20 years, yeah but nobody except researchers could use it until now.) Just like Columbus said that he can stand an egg upright. When greeted by disbelief, he proceed to simply crack the bottom of the egg slightly on the table so that it would not roll over. The people then criticized, "That's cheesy, I knew how to do that all along!" It takes a pioneer to take what looks like an "obvious step" in retrospect.
Back to my point: I think it's a good thing Cisco took this step to make this technology available to people. I wouldn't be so quick to point out, like the people who criticized Columbus, "but hey, this technology's been around for so long!" Having said that, let me just add the standard disclaimer: I do not intend this as flamebait, nor am I trying to criticize Chris or anybody else. Just pointing out something... (you never know how people can misread you on Slashdot, better disclaim everything!):-) And of course, if this technology is going to be available any time soon, I want to try it!!
If you can remove the sequences completely and still have a healthy animal develop, chances are it was indeed junk. This is not surprising, mutations can cause anything, including the inclusion of unused DNA.
Um... I wouldn't be so quick to believe that something is "junk" just because we human beings can find no reason for its existence, or just because according to one of our profound, sublime theories "junk" is to be expected and therefore anything unknown to us can be safely labelled "junk". Take the example of our appendix. Many believed (and perhaps many still believe) that the appendix was useless. Which is why they called it the appendix in the first place. However, this is wrong. The appendix does serve a function in our body. For many years before this was known, however, people even thought of removing their appendix just to avoid the possibility of getting appendicitis (shudder). I hope we don't do this with our DNA... you might be able to survive without your appendix's function, but screwing up your DNA could permanently damage your offspring. No kidding!
Hmm, if this DNA-patenting thing gets through, the next thing after the Open Source movement might be the Open DNA movement, where a certain RMS II will fight to regain lost rights of the public to access their DNA... and he will start to license DNA sequences under the DPL (DNA public license) to prohibit corporate entities from taking freely-accessible DNA and making it "proprietary".
(Disclaimer: if your sense of humor doesn't match mine, please don't take this as flamebait... somebody help me, I've been infected by the GPL virus and I can't stop Open Sourcing every topic that comes up on/.!!!:-O )
Wow. So all those years spent developing XFree86 just to keep a free (as in Open Source free) X implementation was worthwhile. Which raises an interesting question... does this mean that it's worthwhile to insist on creating free clones of proprietary software, or should we concentrate on creating new, Open Source software (ie., not cloning existing software)? If it's worth the time and effort to clone something just for the sake of keeping it Open Source (ie. eventually we reap the benefits when the Open Source development model overtakes what was being cloned at first), then perhaps we should start cloning things like QT and a host of other things with licenses that people are complaining about...
I used to think that efforts like OpenSSH and XFree86 are doomed to play catch-up forever. But now I think I was wrong... it may not be such a bad thing to clone. Perhaps the Linux story generalizes to other things as well -- after all, Linus started by cloning UNIX to run on i386, and look at what Linux has become now.
Hey, at least it's nice to know Slashdot is making some "serious impact" in non-tech circles:-)
Mind you, when the time comes when people "catch up" to technology, Slashdot is going to be like... the center of all the media... WoW! Well, regardless, I think it's a nice feeling to have that we tech-people are actually getting noticed in this way.
(Disclaimer: this is just a dream. I've got who knows how many hours straight of CRT radiation in my face that my brain is probably too toasted to think... oh wait, I'm not using MS Toasters I'm using Linux! Sheesh, time for me to wake up.
Don't you love the big, Big, BIG gap between Apache and everybody else?
Not at all. In fact, I hope there will be a competitor of Apache which occupies roughly the same percentage of the market. Competition is always healthy. Whenever there is no competition, there is no reason not to sit back and relax. And that's when quality starts to drop. I'll probably get flamed for this, but MS products didn't suck that much when MS was still a small company. It's only when they became a dominant force that their products began to really deteriorate.
IMNSHO, shouting hooray to Apache because it's the dominant factor in the webserver market is no different from MS declaring how good the world would be if everybody switched to Windows. I'm not saying Apache sucks (I use it for a website project in fact), but that if there is no competition, eventually it will suck. (Note: this is not intended to be flamebait)
I have nothing against commercial/proprietary software. My argument was NOT whether we should all use GPL code or it is "morally OK as a Linuxer" to use proprietary software. My point was that Linux (both the kernel and the software around it) proved that quality comes from Open Source. If so, it's not big news that a company rides the Linux hype and delivers their proprietary package on Linux. Rather, it would be big news if a company decides to change its development model to use Open Source instead of traditional proprietary development.
As should be expected these days, there were, there are, and there will be a lot of news like this, about companies adopting Linux, porting their software to Linux, etc.. The question is, are they merely riding the hype or do they really see the value of Linux?
I mean, I've nothing against companies adopting Linux just because it's the "hot thing" right now. But I question where they are really going to support Open Source software, which is what Linux is really about. Seems that with all the media attention Linux is getting, people see Linux as some kind of "hero" system in a David vs. Goliath battle against MS. But how many understand Open Source, the very reason Linux exists?
Perhaps RMS was right when he insisted on the name "GNU/Linux" as opposed to merely "Linux". I personally have always felt that RMS is a little too fanatical and nitpicky about small issues like this, but with the current trend that companies adopting Linux suddenly become "heroic" and admired by all (esp. by people like the Slashdotters), I'm beginning to think that RMS has a very good point in insisting on the name "GNU/Linux". Linux in itself means little -- it's the process behind it, ie., Open Source, that makes it so successful. Indeed, if you want to reap the benefits of Linux as a stable, robust system, doesn't that also mean that your tools and apps have to be robust and stable too? But if so, isn't Open Source the way to achieve robustness and stability in the applications that you run on your Linux kernel?
This may sound too purist, but think about this: isn't the reason we despise MS because of their lousy products? But why don't their products "make it"? It's not a question of "we hate MS therefore let's use Open-Source", but isn't the whole reason MS products suck due to the fact that their development is closed? (Besides their goal to becoming the only software company, that is). And isn't the reason that Linux is so good because it's developed in an Open Source model? Linux is good not because it's Linux nor because the genius Linus wrote it. It's good because it's Open Source.
Now back to my point: I have nothing against companies developing proprietary solutions for Linux. That is good to get Linux into the mainstream. However, keep in mind that for a normal user, she doesn't care if the kernel doesn't crash no matter what; if her proprietary apps continually crash and screw up her report/homework/whatever, that's bad. Worse if she's running an X server that locks up. To her, that is equivalent to a system crash, even if the kernel is still running. One bad component in the system ruins the entire image of "stable and robust" for the average user. Companies to adopt Open Source, and not merely ride on Linux hype. IMHO, a company that decides to try the Open Source model of software development ought to be bigger news than if a company merely announces, "we're porting such and such proprietary software to Linux".
Hmm, you said that we need to get a browser for Linux fast, so that MS won't be able to "bend" Web design towards their products. Although I do agree that Linux needs a good browser, and soon, I don't think that will stop MS from bending Web standards... They're already doing that, and they will continue to do that. (Proof: see the dramatic increase in the number of *annoying* sites that use IE-specific code?) I guess what's important is that they aren't the only ones popular enough on the Web to be noticed in general. If they were, they'd be defining the Web, and then we'll really be in trouble. But if alternative browsers make enough noise out there -- ie., attract enough attention to merit consideration of compatibility by Web designers -- the non-IE websites won't pale into insignificance, and Web designers will think twice before making their sites 100% IE-based.
Ahh, the wonder of configurability in Linux! As I've said couple of times already, I believe that to do something well, you've got to have that thing as your focus. In this context, it means that for an OS to integrate well in a palmtop, it has to be configured, designed, for palmtops.
Now the beauty of Linux is that it's not inseparably bound to a particular GUI, like Windows is. The Linux kernel can be adapted more easily than Windows can to the palmtop platform, IMHO. But of course, only the kernel and a few basic system apps should be the same as a PC Linux configuration... an X server, or KDE, etc., may not fit very well in this scenario, and attempting to shoe-horn things is always a sign that something is not quite right with your configuration. What we really want is a UI that is specifically directed at palmtops. Anything less than that would simply not fit.
Hehe, I posted that comment just to (indirectly) hint that too many slashdotters are just going overboard with this OSS thing (although I've nothing against OSS and in fact everything for OSS). I think it won't be too much to say that too many slashdotters are religiously following OSS and religiously hating MS, rather than really "seeing the light", so to speak.
BTW I was talking about OSS, not about Linux specifically, though it did serve as an example.
The Linux Zealot profile:
Reads Slashdot regularly.
Occasionally posts pro-Linux or anti-MS comments on Slashdot, regardless of the topic at hand.
Will spread FUD about how MS sucks the same way MS spreads FUD about how Linux sucks.
Gauges the accuracy of benchmarks by whether Linux outperforms NT on it or not.
Will fall prostrate before Linus and, if so asked, serve him as a Linux Priest for the rest of his life.
Goal in life is to make a pilgrimage to the University of H (for Holiness), Finland.
Cool... I didn't realize somebody other than myself view mathematics as a game. I know people who do NOT take kindly to this understanding of mathematics... I suppose they are unwilling to accept the idea that being a mathematician is somehow the same as being a professional gamer... But to me, math is basically exploring where a set of rules can lead you. Of course, it would be good if these rules somehow reflected something in the "real world", so that when you get somewhere in the "game world" you can map it back to the "real world". But sometimes, it's fun just to contemplate the possibilities without worrying about whether it's "applicable".
Boy, with such... shall we say, strange... laws regarding cryptography in the US, I'm sure glad I don't live there. I certainly don't want to be investigated for "treason" when all I'm doing is trying to defend the right to privacy.
But getting back to the point... I think it's about time those high officials get some sense into their heads... Technology has left them way, way, behind in their traditional model of industry. We're entering into a "New Age", so to speak, and what with the Internet growing uncontrollably, with its own culture, etc., it's about time these people re-think how laws should apply to such things as cryptography. They're clearly so caught in their antiquated ideas they just can't handle the fact that strong cryptography is going to be a fact-of-life not far in the future of the Internet. Fighting against it simply shoots the US in its own foot.
I'm neither a politician nor an economist, but it seems to be that the US is declining... it used to be one of the pioneers in technology, but with the kind of attitude high officials have towards new developments in technology, like trying to shoe-horn the Internet into a traditional physical-goods based model of business, and strongly regulating access to strong cryptography, they may just shoot themselves in the foot so much they will simply fall behind (at least in the computer-related area) and not be able to catch up.
(Disclaimer: This is not meant to be flamebait or FBI-bait. I am not a politician, and I generally avoid politics.)
This is probably off-topic... but, WoW! I'm surprised by the parallels to Open Source software... Just consider: these little tough probes are made by shooting them with air-guns into desert ground. Sounds like Open Source software being released to the public early, let people find where and why it broke, then developers use that to make it better, more crash-proof, and so on, ad infinitum, until we finally arrive at something like Linux, stable, robust, and just solid in general.
This sure does sound like the Cathedral and the Bazaar (credits to ESR) to me... NASA had been spending all that money building these intricate "cathedrals" (aka the traditional spacecrafts). And, try as hard as they might, there have always been all kinds of problems with delicate equipment breaking, etc., and tons of $$$ are spent on fixing or preventing these problems. Compare this with the two "crash-land-with-style" probes: built by a totally different philosophy (ie., crash 'em as hard as you can then make it tougher so it won't break next time, instead of spending years at the drawing board coming up with a "beautiful" and complex cathedral design), very resistant to harsh treatment, etc.. This new approach is cheaper, smaller, better. Reminds anyone of MS bloatware vs. the small but super-stable Linux? The parallel to Open Source software is simply amazing...
(Disclaimer: I have been reading Slashdot too much, and this Open Source thing is just getting into my head... argh, time to get back to programming!:-D )
I'm not speaking for other slashdotters, but for myself, I find this article "refreshing", in a sense, to know that people have fought for Open Source before. But I'm just not sure what to comment, other than, "Wow, so it's only today that we see the results of those few people's fight to open up source code to the public."
I never thought I'd see machines playing soccer for about 50 more years.
Really??? Aibo can play soccer for 50 years? WoW! I never thought the batteries would last that long! Are we going to have century-long robotic soccer leagues now?:-)
Good point. Although I suspect that most people here have emacs or vi as their favorite editor, mine is aXe. On the surface, it seems clunky and less optimal than the "true hardcore text editors" like vi/emacs where a few simple keystrokes get you to do what you want. Tom seems to be making the point that only a certain kind of keyboard allows you to "zen out".
That's not quite true. I think the underlying thing is that you have to be comfortable with what you're using. Tom happens to grow up with a certain style of keyboard, therefore anything else seems klunky to him. I grew up with aXe as my text editor (it was Norton Editor in my DOS days, but unfortunately I can't find an equivalent to that on Linux, and pico sucks). When I'm really "into" my programming, it seems that aXe isn't even there any more. Every time I need a new editing window, my hands automagically nudge the mouse, slide over the button just enough to click it, and up pops a new window, another wiggle, and it loads up the file I want to edit, another flurry of taps on the keyboard, and my fingers have just added a new feature to my program. Well, it's not quite this simple, but when I'm "in it", (or "zenning out" as Tom calls it) none of these "cumbersome" operations as switching back and forth from the mouse/keyboard seem to matter.
Now, if I only had pico or had to use vi (which IMNSHO has a really sucky interface) I would've completely forgotten the on-the-spur inspiration I had on how to implement this new neat feature I wanted in my program. I'm not saying this to start a "religious war" between vi/emacs/pico/aXe, but I'm just illustrating that it's not so much a matter of which tools you're using, but it's more a matter of which tool you're used to. If you're used to vi, forcing you to use aXe would probably send you through the ceiling in frustration after a few seconds. But for me, it's the other way round. If I had aXe, I'd "zen out" real fast. If I had vi, well... it'd be a week from now and I'd still be wondering, "How on earth do you exit this miserable editor now?!"
Just my $0.02 worth.
(Offtopic) BTW, I can fully identify with Tom's piano analogies. I'm a self-taught pianist, and I can truly identify with Tom's description of "zenning out" when I'm at the piano and inspiration just comes pouring out, seemingly independent of the way my fingers are moving. I hear the music in my head, and my fingers cause the piano to reproduce what I (pre-)hear. Now, that is zenning out on a piano!:-)
Slashdot Mirror
Why are Linux people sometimes so caught up with a siege mentality? "Oh no! MS is spreading FUD about Linux again! Hurry up guys, we need to counter their unfounded FUD, otherwise they may FUD Linux out of existence!"
IMHO if Linux is really that good, it doesn't matter what people say about it. One day its true value will be manifested. Talk is cheap. It's too easy to talk and spread FUD and anti-FUD. How 'bout something real, people? Let MS waste their time and resources FUDding away. If Linux is really worthwhile, people's opinion of it will not matter, as long as the Linux community continues working on improving it.
Although there is the need to educate people so that they know they have choice outside MS and so on, we shouldn't get caught in the crossfire between MS FUD and anti-MS FUD. Let them FUD all they want; let's just present the facts to people and not be unduly provoked by what those people say about us. One day, people who believed in the FUD and people who spread the FUD will realize that they were totally wrong about Linux. But by then Linux would have left them far, far behind and it would be their turn to play catch-up.
Well, there are both sides to the story. OT1H my personal choice of Linux distro will always be Debian, because I think the Debian philosophy is closest to Linux's Open Source roots: everything done by volunteers, no commercial $$$ bottomline driving you to compromise, but genuinely interested programmers and developers adding quality to the system.
OTOH being a volunteer community means that if nobody's willing to volunteer in a particular area, you've a problem. IMHO this is where commercial distros like RedHat are a good "motivation": they are commercial, so they can hire people to do a job that they see is necessary, but where nobody seems to be volunteering. As a result, the commercial distro gets the new feature/tool, which causes somebody out there to think, "hey won't it be nice if we had a similar tool in our free distro". Bingo, now you have a volunteer to do the job. (Of course, in most scenarios like this we'd probably just adapt the package from the commercial distro, assuming it's GPL'd, so there's no reduplication of effort. Another beauty of Open Source.)
I've been living off unstable for over a year now, from hamm through slink now on potato. :-) It did break a few times.. some people probably remember that notorious bash/libreadline breakage, for example, and the dependency nightmares when migrating from libc5 to glibc2 (libc6). But other than the occasional glitch, "unstable" is pretty much stable, and up-to-date system. One thing I learned is that when upgrading "critical" packages like bash/libreadline, libc6, dpkg, to name a few, these should be done separately from upgrading the rest of the system and monitored more carefully. This way, you get to immediately fix problems with the critical packages, without having your system crippled by other partially-upgraded packages whose installation stopped because one of the "critical" packages broke something.
"Another frog in the well croaks indignantly against in protest against construction workers who are unearthing the century-old useless well. Joining a whole crowd of other frogs in the well, insisting that the construction workers respect their rights to the well, and the water therein. But some day, the bulldozer will smash through the old well walls, and concrete poured in as they finish the basement of a new high-rise to be."
Not another pathetic attempt to put the genie back into the bottle. When will people get out of their well and realize that the Information Age cannot be shoe-horned into traditional industrial models? Copy-protection is an old, obsolete concept that just doesn't fit in the modern context of the Internet and the Information Age. This new era is about sharing information, not hiding it. It's about making things available to people, and opening up choices by allowing fair competition to your trade. It's a new set of rules that sells services instead of hogging commidities. Trying to fight this will only shoot themselves in the foot, real hard.
And here we have yet another obviously traditional, "orthodox" company talking about "increasing encryption key size", while not realizing that the weak link is the fact that information is actually being displayed through the DVD player -- hence it's copiable. They're clinging on to old principles that are quickly becoming obsolete. Pathetic.
People who intend to survive in the new millenium better break out of their old mentality, and learn to play by the new rules. And they better learn this before the concrete is poured into their well. Time for them to get out of the well and look for higher, better things.
"Stagnation breeds failure and miserable defeat."
(BTW please excuse my melodramatic intro :-) )
Hit it twice!
Obviously MS isn't going to endorse the write-once-run-anywhere philosophy of Java. But why did they pick it up in the first place? Riding Java hype, perhaps? Anyway, I think this incident is a good sign. MS embraced Java, extended it, and almost got to the exterminate stage... good thing Sun fought up to it and stopped their nonsense. One more protocol not polluted by MS.
Now, if only this would happen more often, for more protocols/standards. Monstrosities as IE-specific HTML, or even Netscape-specific HTML is just... grotesque. Remember the original, unpolluted HTML? I remember learning it back then... there was this emphasis on using logical markups rather than physical -- ie., use tags that express the structure of the contents, rather than express the physical appearance. Well, look at HTML now: almost every bit of "logical structure" is gone from the tags, just about everything is used to control formatting. And recently there some people expressed a desire for web content to be more content-based than visual-based. Well, HTML was supposed to have provided that context, but it was polluted.
What we need are universal protocols and standards, but variety of implementations. MS got it twisted the wrong way -- they make their own incompatible protocol extension, non-universally accepted, and locks it onto their implementation. Then they turn around and say, "wouldn't it be better if everyone just used one OS, one implementation, and our version of the protocol?" I have nothing against MS doing Java. If they stuck to the same standard. But I do have something against MS when they pollute the standard and use that to lock in the consumer market.
(And of course, the above applies not just to MS but anyone else.)
\begin{sarcasm}
Gee, didn't Gore patent n-click Internet browsing (since he invented the Internet)?
Wait, isn't there a patent for n-click Computer Usage, owned by the inventor of the Mouse? Did somebody say "prior art"? but doesn't the poor guy have a right to defend his online position and his business plan?!?!
\end{sarcasm}
(Disclaimer: I have no political motives other than to spin humor at the expense of politicians.)
Sure, usually when "real" leading-edge (or bleeding edge) technology gets to common people like us, it has been "there" for long years. (Though, in the software world the timescale is many months rather than many years). It always takes somebody to take the step to implement something based on that technology so that it is accessible to the public.
Just like most new OS technology/concepts usually goes around only in academic circles for a while, before somebody in the industry decides to actually use it to produce "real" OS's for people to use. (Eg. witness how many years behind Windows is in terms of OS design? Even Linux is still based on macrokernel design, and very few people even know about Hurd which is based on microkernels -- arguably the "front-line" of OS research. But by now, there's probably already something newer.).
It's always easy to criticize in retrospect (yeah Cisco didn't do anything like, new, this MMDS stuff's been around for 20 years, yeah but nobody except researchers could use it until now.) Just like Columbus said that he can stand an egg upright. When greeted by disbelief, he proceed to simply crack the bottom of the egg slightly on the table so that it would not roll over. The people then criticized, "That's cheesy, I knew how to do that all along!" It takes a pioneer to take what looks like an "obvious step" in retrospect.
Back to my point: I think it's a good thing Cisco took this step to make this technology available to people. I wouldn't be so quick to point out, like the people who criticized Columbus, "but hey, this technology's been around for so long!" Having said that, let me just add the standard disclaimer: I do not intend this as flamebait, nor am I trying to criticize Chris or anybody else. Just pointing out something... (you never know how people can misread you on Slashdot, better disclaim everything!) :-) And of course, if this technology is going to be available any time soon, I want to try it!!
Um... I wouldn't be so quick to believe that something is "junk" just because we human beings can find no reason for its existence, or just because according to one of our profound, sublime theories "junk" is to be expected and therefore anything unknown to us can be safely labelled "junk". Take the example of our appendix. Many believed (and perhaps many still believe) that the appendix was useless. Which is why they called it the appendix in the first place. However, this is wrong. The appendix does serve a function in our body. For many years before this was known, however, people even thought of removing their appendix just to avoid the possibility of getting appendicitis (shudder). I hope we don't do this with our DNA... you might be able to survive without your appendix's function, but screwing up your DNA could permanently damage your offspring. No kidding!
Hmm, if this DNA-patenting thing gets through, the next thing after the Open Source movement might be the Open DNA movement, where a certain RMS II will fight to regain lost rights of the public to access their DNA... and he will start to license DNA sequences under the DPL (DNA public license) to prohibit corporate entities from taking freely-accessible DNA and making it "proprietary".
(Disclaimer: if your sense of humor doesn't match mine, please don't take this as flamebait... somebody help me, I've been infected by the GPL virus and I can't stop Open Sourcing every topic that comes up on /.!!! :-O )
Wow. So all those years spent developing XFree86 just to keep a free (as in Open Source free) X implementation was worthwhile. Which raises an interesting question... does this mean that it's worthwhile to insist on creating free clones of proprietary software, or should we concentrate on creating new, Open Source software (ie., not cloning existing software)? If it's worth the time and effort to clone something just for the sake of keeping it Open Source (ie. eventually we reap the benefits when the Open Source development model overtakes what was being cloned at first), then perhaps we should start cloning things like QT and a host of other things with licenses that people are complaining about...
I used to think that efforts like OpenSSH and XFree86 are doomed to play catch-up forever. But now I think I was wrong... it may not be such a bad thing to clone. Perhaps the Linux story generalizes to other things as well -- after all, Linus started by cloning UNIX to run on i386, and look at what Linux has become now.
Hey, at least it's nice to know Slashdot is making some "serious impact" in non-tech circles :-)
Mind you, when the time comes when people "catch up" to technology, Slashdot is going to be like... the center of all the media... WoW! Well, regardless, I think it's a nice feeling to have that we tech-people are actually getting noticed in this way.
(Disclaimer: this is just a dream. I've got who knows how many hours straight of CRT radiation in my face that my brain is probably too toasted to think... oh wait, I'm not using MS Toasters I'm using Linux! Sheesh, time for me to wake up.
Not at all. In fact, I hope there will be a competitor of Apache which occupies roughly the same percentage of the market. Competition is always healthy. Whenever there is no competition, there is no reason not to sit back and relax. And that's when quality starts to drop. I'll probably get flamed for this, but MS products didn't suck that much when MS was still a small company. It's only when they became a dominant force that their products began to really deteriorate.
IMNSHO, shouting hooray to Apache because it's the dominant factor in the webserver market is no different from MS declaring how good the world would be if everybody switched to Windows. I'm not saying Apache sucks (I use it for a website project in fact), but that if there is no competition, eventually it will suck. (Note: this is not intended to be flamebait)
I have nothing against commercial/proprietary software. My argument was NOT whether we should all use GPL code or it is "morally OK as a Linuxer" to use proprietary software. My point was that Linux (both the kernel and the software around it) proved that quality comes from Open Source. If so, it's not big news that a company rides the Linux hype and delivers their proprietary package on Linux. Rather, it would be big news if a company decides to change its development model to use Open Source instead of traditional proprietary development.
As should be expected these days, there were, there are, and there will be a lot of news like this, about companies adopting Linux, porting their software to Linux, etc.. The question is, are they merely riding the hype or do they really see the value of Linux?
I mean, I've nothing against companies adopting Linux just because it's the "hot thing" right now. But I question where they are really going to support Open Source software, which is what Linux is really about. Seems that with all the media attention Linux is getting, people see Linux as some kind of "hero" system in a David vs. Goliath battle against MS. But how many understand Open Source, the very reason Linux exists?
Perhaps RMS was right when he insisted on the name "GNU/Linux" as opposed to merely "Linux". I personally have always felt that RMS is a little too fanatical and nitpicky about small issues like this, but with the current trend that companies adopting Linux suddenly become "heroic" and admired by all (esp. by people like the Slashdotters), I'm beginning to think that RMS has a very good point in insisting on the name "GNU/Linux". Linux in itself means little -- it's the process behind it, ie., Open Source, that makes it so successful. Indeed, if you want to reap the benefits of Linux as a stable, robust system, doesn't that also mean that your tools and apps have to be robust and stable too? But if so, isn't Open Source the way to achieve robustness and stability in the applications that you run on your Linux kernel?
This may sound too purist, but think about this: isn't the reason we despise MS because of their lousy products? But why don't their products "make it"? It's not a question of "we hate MS therefore let's use Open-Source", but isn't the whole reason MS products suck due to the fact that their development is closed? (Besides their goal to becoming the only software company, that is). And isn't the reason that Linux is so good because it's developed in an Open Source model? Linux is good not because it's Linux nor because the genius Linus wrote it. It's good because it's Open Source.
Now back to my point: I have nothing against companies developing proprietary solutions for Linux. That is good to get Linux into the mainstream. However, keep in mind that for a normal user, she doesn't care if the kernel doesn't crash no matter what; if her proprietary apps continually crash and screw up her report/homework/whatever, that's bad. Worse if she's running an X server that locks up. To her, that is equivalent to a system crash, even if the kernel is still running. One bad component in the system ruins the entire image of "stable and robust" for the average user. Companies to adopt Open Source, and not merely ride on Linux hype. IMHO, a company that decides to try the Open Source model of software development ought to be bigger news than if a company merely announces, "we're porting such and such proprietary software to Linux".
Alright. Enough of this rant. :-)
Hmm, you said that we need to get a browser for Linux fast, so that MS won't be able to "bend" Web design towards their products. Although I do agree that Linux needs a good browser, and soon, I don't think that will stop MS from bending Web standards... They're already doing that, and they will continue to do that. (Proof: see the dramatic increase in the number of *annoying* sites that use IE-specific code?) I guess what's important is that they aren't the only ones popular enough on the Web to be noticed in general. If they were, they'd be defining the Web, and then we'll really be in trouble. But if alternative browsers make enough noise out there -- ie., attract enough attention to merit consideration of compatibility by Web designers -- the non-IE websites won't pale into insignificance, and Web designers will think twice before making their sites 100% IE-based.
Ahh, the wonder of configurability in Linux! As I've said couple of times already, I believe that to do something well, you've got to have that thing as your focus. In this context, it means that for an OS to integrate well in a palmtop, it has to be configured, designed, for palmtops.
Now the beauty of Linux is that it's not inseparably bound to a particular GUI, like Windows is. The Linux kernel can be adapted more easily than Windows can to the palmtop platform, IMHO. But of course, only the kernel and a few basic system apps should be the same as a PC Linux configuration... an X server, or KDE, etc., may not fit very well in this scenario, and attempting to shoe-horn things is always a sign that something is not quite right with your configuration. What we really want is a UI that is specifically directed at palmtops. Anything less than that would simply not fit.
Hehe, I posted that comment just to (indirectly) hint that too many slashdotters are just going overboard with this OSS thing (although I've nothing against OSS and in fact everything for OSS). I think it won't be too much to say that too many slashdotters are religiously following OSS and religiously hating MS, rather than really "seeing the light", so to speak.
BTW I was talking about OSS, not about Linux specifically, though it did serve as an example.
The Linux Zealot profile:
:-D
Cool... I didn't realize somebody other than myself view mathematics as a game. I know people who do NOT take kindly to this understanding of mathematics... I suppose they are unwilling to accept the idea that being a mathematician is somehow the same as being a professional gamer... But to me, math is basically exploring where a set of rules can lead you. Of course, it would be good if these rules somehow reflected something in the "real world", so that when you get somewhere in the "game world" you can map it back to the "real world". But sometimes, it's fun just to contemplate the possibilities without worrying about whether it's "applicable".
Boy, with such... shall we say, strange... laws regarding cryptography in the US, I'm sure glad I don't live there. I certainly don't want to be investigated for "treason" when all I'm doing is trying to defend the right to privacy.
But getting back to the point... I think it's about time those high officials get some sense into their heads... Technology has left them way, way, behind in their traditional model of industry. We're entering into a "New Age", so to speak, and what with the Internet growing uncontrollably, with its own culture, etc., it's about time these people re-think how laws should apply to such things as cryptography. They're clearly so caught in their antiquated ideas they just can't handle the fact that strong cryptography is going to be a fact-of-life not far in the future of the Internet. Fighting against it simply shoots the US in its own foot.
I'm neither a politician nor an economist, but it seems to be that the US is declining... it used to be one of the pioneers in technology, but with the kind of attitude high officials have towards new developments in technology, like trying to shoe-horn the Internet into a traditional physical-goods based model of business, and strongly regulating access to strong cryptography, they may just shoot themselves in the foot so much they will simply fall behind (at least in the computer-related area) and not be able to catch up.
(Disclaimer: This is not meant to be flamebait or FBI-bait. I am not a politician, and I generally avoid politics.)
This is probably off-topic... but, WoW! I'm surprised by the parallels to Open Source software... Just consider: these little tough probes are made by shooting them with air-guns into desert ground. Sounds like Open Source software being released to the public early, let people find where and why it broke, then developers use that to make it better, more crash-proof, and so on, ad infinitum, until we finally arrive at something like Linux, stable, robust, and just solid in general.
This sure does sound like the Cathedral and the Bazaar (credits to ESR) to me... NASA had been spending all that money building these intricate "cathedrals" (aka the traditional spacecrafts). And, try as hard as they might, there have always been all kinds of problems with delicate equipment breaking, etc., and tons of $$$ are spent on fixing or preventing these problems. Compare this with the two "crash-land-with-style" probes: built by a totally different philosophy (ie., crash 'em as hard as you can then make it tougher so it won't break next time, instead of spending years at the drawing board coming up with a "beautiful" and complex cathedral design), very resistant to harsh treatment, etc.. This new approach is cheaper, smaller, better. Reminds anyone of MS bloatware vs. the small but super-stable Linux? The parallel to Open Source software is simply amazing...
(Disclaimer: I have been reading Slashdot too much, and this Open Source thing is just getting into my head... argh, time to get back to programming! :-D )
I'm not speaking for other slashdotters, but for myself, I find this article "refreshing", in a sense, to know that people have fought for Open Source before. But I'm just not sure what to comment, other than, "Wow, so it's only today that we see the results of those few people's fight to open up source code to the public."
Really??? Aibo can play soccer for 50 years? WoW! I never thought the batteries would last that long! Are we going to have century-long robotic soccer leagues now? :-)
Good point. Although I suspect that most people here have emacs or vi as their favorite editor, mine is aXe. On the surface, it seems clunky and less optimal than the "true hardcore text editors" like vi/emacs where a few simple keystrokes get you to do what you want. Tom seems to be making the point that only a certain kind of keyboard allows you to "zen out".
That's not quite true. I think the underlying thing is that you have to be comfortable with what you're using. Tom happens to grow up with a certain style of keyboard, therefore anything else seems klunky to him. I grew up with aXe as my text editor (it was Norton Editor in my DOS days, but unfortunately I can't find an equivalent to that on Linux, and pico sucks). When I'm really "into" my programming, it seems that aXe isn't even there any more. Every time I need a new editing window, my hands automagically nudge the mouse, slide over the button just enough to click it, and up pops a new window, another wiggle, and it loads up the file I want to edit, another flurry of taps on the keyboard, and my fingers have just added a new feature to my program. Well, it's not quite this simple, but when I'm "in it", (or "zenning out" as Tom calls it) none of these "cumbersome" operations as switching back and forth from the mouse/keyboard seem to matter.
Now, if I only had pico or had to use vi (which IMNSHO has a really sucky interface) I would've completely forgotten the on-the-spur inspiration I had on how to implement this new neat feature I wanted in my program. I'm not saying this to start a "religious war" between vi/emacs/pico/aXe, but I'm just illustrating that it's not so much a matter of which tools you're using, but it's more a matter of which tool you're used to. If you're used to vi, forcing you to use aXe would probably send you through the ceiling in frustration after a few seconds. But for me, it's the other way round. If I had aXe, I'd "zen out" real fast. If I had vi, well... it'd be a week from now and I'd still be wondering, "How on earth do you exit this miserable editor now?!"
Just my $0.02 worth.
(Offtopic) BTW, I can fully identify with Tom's piano analogies. I'm a self-taught pianist, and I can truly identify with Tom's description of "zenning out" when I'm at the piano and inspiration just comes pouring out, seemingly independent of the way my fingers are moving. I hear the music in my head, and my fingers cause the piano to reproduce what I (pre-)hear. Now, that is zenning out on a piano! :-)