I can see a big problem defining what gets included in that "system", unless you mean only the minimal base system. Anything larger and you start to get into "KDE!vsGnome! Large!vsSmall! Server!vsEnduser!" kinds of fights.
There's nothing wrong with someone trying to make a living off of free software. To the contrary, it should lead to users getting more of what they want in a distro. And, as good as Debian is, it too has its share of politics. I lurked some of their newsgroups to find out more about apt-build and how it was coming along and just the debate under "Are we losing users to Gentoo" thread demonstrated how hard headed some of their developers can be. A couple even proposed pre-compiling binaries for every flavor of every processor rather than offer users a solution as elegant as portage to compile and customize their systems from scratch.
Excellent post! I'd like to add that since competing projects are open source when one finds the solution to a problem others are free to integregate that solution into thier own projects, which can save time in the long run.
If non-trivial portions of code from SCO and Linux are absolutely identical, that seems to me to wrap it up.
So if you were on the jury, you wouldn't even consider the possibility of their being identical because SCO used Linux code or even that it originated from a third source like *Bsd?
No, it wouldn't be dangerous at all considering that "Congress shall have power to...... promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries," (U.S. CONSTITUTION - Article 1, Section 8).
Considering the company's past success, it is certain that science would progress by knowing what code not to write.
There really is NO better way (short of fully-automated artificially intelligent solutions) to handle config files. Maybe the only improvement would be a special text-editor for config files, one that had a library of available options and examples and security warnings.
Simpler would be to have emerge -u upgrade the baselayout instead of treating it as a new install everytime somebody changes a line of code.
That's why I'm so happy with Gentoo. After two years wasted trying to learn how to work services on Linux and being frustrated by GUI config tools mucking up my beautiful config files I found a distro that lets me do what I need to do without having to scratch my head and reconfigure stuff all the time.
Until you do a an emerge -u world and have to wade through fifty some odd.cfg files with etc-update. I once overwrote my fstab when I got glassy eyed during the procedure.
It's more of a chicken and egg type of problem. The higher the cost and more restrictive the licensing gets, the more people will look for alternative methods of acquiring the software that meets their needs.
There's nothing wrong with people wanting a stable distribution of course but I tend to agree with you that the Debian team does seem to go somewhat overboard on the issue. Really now, is that still KDE 2.2.25 in the testing distribution or did I just pull up a cached web page?
As for Gentoo, I really enjoyed using it. Downloading and compiling an ebuild really didn't take all that much time with a DSL connection, 10 or 15 minutes for most small apps and for the larger ones you could still do other work while they were updating. My biggest gripe was whenever a new version of the baselayout (seemingly often running their "unstable") your disk was littered with.cfg files and it was a pain to decide if you needed the new versions or not. I once was going through about 50 of them after an emerge -u world and accidently let etc-update overwrite fstab.
I always thought that a cross between the two would be ideal and was excited about apt-build, but after lurking newsgroups I found that most Debain maintainers were against making it easier for users to actually compile open source software themselves. Some had gone so far as to even suggest creating binaries for every version of every processor they supported.
Anyway...for now I'm back to using Mandrake while contemplating whether or not to build a.deb based LFS system.
I read a story today that Al-Jazeera was pleading with the US goverment to do somthing about the attacks and about two Al-Jazeera reporters bering kicked out of the NYSE. In the past week Al-Gazeera has gained 4 million subscribers in Europe but only 100K in the US.
I wonder if they are pleading just as hard to Saddam to let CNN back into Iraq?
I said "change the law", not do away with it. The word "copyright" means "right to copy", and the laws purpose is to make works available for public use after a limited period of monopoly for the creator. Tell us, what movies or cds will be copyable in any of the current consumer's lifetime?
If copyrights did what they were actually supposed to do, which is to make more works available to the public, by giving the creator a temporary monopoly, then it wouldn't be bad. But that is not what they do.
At the end of the day if people can get away with it they will some one must enforce the law - you have two choices: 1) Do it in house 2) Have the government/police do it for you
Actually there is a third...change the stupid law that people find so repugnant that they choose to ignore it.
How many people with any kind of professional training (doctor, engineer, lawyer) would even dream of taking a job at such rates? Yet it's "greedy" for me to expect to make a living with a University degree and fifteen years experience to back me up?
There's no comparison at all. If a Doctor, Lawyer, or Engineer botch a job they are held legally and finacially responsible.
Sure, it's a lack of trust and you're treated like a criminal before the fact....But, the fact is that many stores lose lots of merchandise this time of year. I don't like it, but I don't falt them one bit.
And what would be wrong with a simple "paid" sticker placed on the box by the cashier who cheerfully accepted the money instead of forcing every single one of their customers to prove their innocence with a gruff "I need to see your recipt" at the door?
The point is there are many ways to solve both the RIAA's and Best Buy's perceived losses through theft. Treating everyone of your customers as a potential thief may certainly be one, but certainly not the only or best method.
I couldn't agree with you more...assuming that everyone who uses your product is going to steal it is one of the most irritatingly exasperating stances an organization can take. I just today had a real world experience of that very nature at Best Buy purchasing a DVD player as a present for my daughter's family.
I went through the check out lane, paid for my purchase, had the player in my cart and looking at the receipt on my way out the door when a kid on a power trip in a yellow tee-shirt comes up to me demanding to see the perfectly visible receipt. I said no and continued walking towards the door and he took the damn DVD player out of my cart and said "then you don't get this!"
Talk about pissed...I did end up showing him the receipt, got MY Dvd player back and headed straight for the return counter. Of course, the lines there were long, and I just said fuck it and left with the player.
The power trip the kid at Best Buy today was on is the same power trip that the RIAA is on. It's about control and subjugation to their will.
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I can see a big problem defining what gets included in that "system", unless you mean only the minimal base system. Anything larger and you start to get into "KDE!vsGnome! Large!vsSmall! Server!vsEnduser!" kinds of fights.
Exactly, just the baselayout.
A couple of extra steps is no problem. But what about:
#apt-build system
Is that working yet?
Also Debian has source based instalation. But it seems not interested by people.
It does?
There's nothing wrong with someone trying to make a living off of free software. To the contrary, it should lead to users getting more of what they want in a distro. And, as good as Debian is, it too has its share of politics. I lurked some of their newsgroups to find out more about apt-build and how it was coming along and just the debate under "Are we losing users to Gentoo" thread demonstrated how hard headed some of their developers can be. A couple even proposed pre-compiling binaries for every flavor of every processor rather than offer users a solution as elegant as portage to compile and customize their systems from scratch.
Excellent post! I'd like to add that since competing projects are open source when one finds the solution to a problem others are free to integregate that solution into thier own projects, which can save time in the long run.
If non-trivial portions of code from SCO and Linux are absolutely identical, that seems to me to wrap it up.
So if you were on the jury, you wouldn't even consider the possibility of their being identical because SCO used Linux code or even that it originated from a third source like *Bsd?
No, it wouldn't be dangerous at all considering that "Congress shall have power to...... promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries," (U.S. CONSTITUTION - Article 1, Section 8).
Considering the company's past success, it is certain that science would progress by knowing what code not to write.
There really is NO better way (short of fully-automated artificially intelligent solutions) to handle config files. Maybe the only improvement would be a special text-editor for config files, one that had a library of available options and examples and security warnings.
Simpler would be to have emerge -u upgrade the baselayout instead of treating it as a new install everytime somebody changes a line of code.
That's why I'm so happy with Gentoo. After two years wasted trying to learn how to work services on Linux and being frustrated by GUI config tools mucking up my beautiful config files I found a distro that lets me do what I need to do without having to scratch my head and reconfigure stuff all the time.
.cfg files with etc-update. I once overwrote my fstab when I got glassy eyed during the procedure.
Until you do a an emerge -u world and have to wade through fifty some odd
Unless of course everybody went against the flow which leaves the software creator hurting.
It seems that "linux-source-i386-2.4.13-21S.i386.rpm 05/09/2003 05:51:00 PM" is also available there.
It's more of a chicken and egg type of problem. The higher the cost and more restrictive the licensing gets, the more people will look for alternative methods of acquiring the software that meets their needs.
There's nothing wrong with people wanting a stable distribution of course but I tend to agree with you that the Debian team does seem to go somewhat overboard on the issue. Really now, is that still KDE 2.2.25 in the testing distribution or did I just pull up a cached web page?
.cfg files and it was a pain to decide if you needed the new versions or not. I once was going through about 50 of them after an emerge -u world and accidently let etc-update overwrite fstab.
.deb based LFS system.
As for Gentoo, I really enjoyed using it. Downloading and compiling an ebuild really didn't take all that much time with a DSL connection, 10 or 15 minutes for most small apps and for the larger ones you could still do other work while they were updating. My biggest gripe was whenever a new version of the baselayout (seemingly often running their "unstable") your disk was littered with
I always thought that a cross between the two would be ideal and was excited about apt-build, but after lurking newsgroups I found that most Debain maintainers were against making it easier for users to actually compile open source software themselves. Some had gone so far as to even suggest creating binaries for every version of every processor they supported.
Anyway...for now I'm back to using Mandrake while contemplating whether or not to build a
What happened to Who, What, Where, When, and How in journalism. That article reads like piece of fiction.
I.e., do you want Saddam to run for the US presidency next year, or do you think the US too should be bombed by the international community?
The offerred choices remind of me an Iraqi ballot slip.
A. Saddam
B. I want my family raped and murdered.
I read a story today that Al-Jazeera was pleading with the US goverment to do somthing about the attacks and about two Al-Jazeera reporters bering kicked out of the NYSE. In the past week Al-Gazeera has gained 4 million subscribers in Europe but only 100K in the US.
I wonder if they are pleading just as hard to Saddam to let CNN back into Iraq?
(One thing I like about news sources like the "Marxist Workers Journal" is that it's pretty easy to see where their bias lies...)
If you just want the opposite bias, just go here.
Army doesn't own it. People own it. The money spent on the satellites came from people's taxes.
And the people (through their elected representives) gave the money to the Army for military use.
I said "change the law", not do away with it. The word "copyright" means "right to copy", and the laws purpose is to make works available for public use after a limited period of monopoly for the creator. Tell us, what movies or cds will be copyable in any of the current consumer's lifetime?
If copyrights did what they were actually supposed to do, which is to make more works available to the public, by giving the creator a temporary monopoly, then it wouldn't be bad. But that is not what they do.
At the end of the day if people can get away with it they will some one must enforce the law - you have two choices:
1) Do it in house
2) Have the government/police do it for you
Actually there is a third...change the stupid law that people find so repugnant that they choose to ignore it.
How many people with any kind of professional training (doctor, engineer, lawyer) would even dream of taking a job at such rates? Yet it's "greedy" for me to expect to make a living with a University degree and fifteen years experience to back me up?
There's no comparison at all. If a Doctor, Lawyer, or Engineer botch a job they are held legally and finacially responsible.
Sure, it's a lack of trust and you're treated like a criminal before the fact....But, the fact is that many stores lose lots of merchandise this time of year. I don't like it, but I don't falt them one bit.
And what would be wrong with a simple "paid" sticker placed on the box by the cashier who cheerfully accepted the money instead of forcing every single one of their customers to prove their innocence with a gruff "I need to see your recipt" at the door?
The point is there are many ways to solve both the RIAA's and Best Buy's perceived losses through theft. Treating everyone of your customers as a potential thief may certainly be one, but certainly not the only or best method.
Gentoo may be tedious to install, but it's easy as a two-dollar whore to maintain and keep up to date.
I couldn't agree with you more...assuming that everyone who uses your product is going to steal it is one of the most irritatingly exasperating stances an organization can take. I just today had a real world experience of that very nature at Best Buy purchasing a DVD player as a present for my daughter's family.
I went through the check out lane, paid for my purchase, had the player in my cart and looking at the receipt on my way out the door when a kid on a power trip in a yellow tee-shirt comes up to me demanding to see the perfectly visible receipt. I said no and continued walking towards the door and he took the damn DVD player out of my cart and said "then you don't get this!"
Talk about pissed...I did end up showing him the receipt, got MY Dvd player back and headed straight for the return counter. Of course, the lines there were long, and I just said fuck it and left with the player.
The power trip the kid at Best Buy today was on is the same power trip that the RIAA is on. It's about control and subjugation to their will.