I'd guess his point was that if you want to use ubuntu as an average joe, you can get by perfectly with sudo. Indeed, I did and I could. If you really want to unleash the power of root, well, be prepared to do a bit of work.
Exactly. I've only played a little with Kubuntu but even in Gentoo I find it very rare to actually need to login as root for anything.
I hope you are being sarcastic, but incase you arent....
Nope, I'm serious.
You really think that even 1% of the people that use Bittorrent for acquiring illegal content even cares about the IP system in anyway?
I think most people just don't care about the IP system so they ignore it.
You think the majority would understand what you are talking about if you brought the matter of civil disobediance up with them?
Do you think the majority of people who visited speakeasies during the twenties understood about civil disobedience or did they simply want to share a drink with their friends?
No, its about getting something for 'free', avoiding paying the costs, keeping up with their TV shows before they are broadcast in their country.
Of course people want to get things at little or no cost, and it's only natural that they feel slighted when they can't have things that are available elsewhere. I'm surprised that your surprised about this.
Bittorrent is a superb system that works wonders for distributing game demos and movie trailers etc. By defending its usage to steal IP, your just going to bring the whole system down.
Isn't bringing the IP system down the whole point behind this mass infringement movement?
I whole heartedly agree. Nothing was more irritating to me than to install Kubuntu ( the 'Breezy Badger' distro ) than to find out that I couldn't graphically interface as root, even though it would prompt me with the *psudeo*-root password.
Why didn't you just run "sudo passwd root" and edit your kdmrc to enable root logins if you felt the need for a graphical login?
So, the problem with Network neutrality is that it opens up the DSL and Cable providers up to competition for their other service, and that'a a big disincentive for them to roll it out. I wrote an article about this at the Duke Law & Technology Review.
It seems to me that since the information superhighway is becoming increasingly as important to maintaining a vibrant healthy economy as concrete ones the government should start considering excercising eminent domain to ensure neutrality.
It allowed the US government to take advantage of a preexisting law that mandated the overthrowing of Saddam's regime.
It serves the purpose of getting free real estate for non-Muslims in Palestine. Which in turn gives you a base to dominate the oil-rich region.
American's were happily supporting the Saudi's royal couffers before 911, and the only thing hindering peace in the Middle East is the Palestinean refusal to acknowledge Israel's right to exist. Doesn't it just amaze you that land lost by the Ottoman Empire nearly a century ago is still full of so much violence? It's almost as if there are some Muslim's who think that they are "too good" to share a piece of real estate with Jews.
And this is the point where I step back and say that's great... for you and KDE. But not everyone wants or needs that, and plenty of people prefer something that just lets them hit the ground running with well-chosen default settings. And for those people (and I'm one of them), there's GNOME.
The question though is what is wrong with offering both well-chosen defaults to hit the ground running with AND advanced configuration options for those who like to twiddle? Oh, and please don't take any of this wrong. Most of us who question the direction Gnome has taken do so because we'd like to see Linux focus on a unified desktop that fills the needs of all users.
It's not just Congress. There are lots of ways to make "inalienable" rights disappear -- martial law, for example.
Though you are right about the fragility of rights we take for granted it sounds like you are still confused about the difference between an inalienable right and a legislated one. If, for example, Congress were to pass legislation outlawing bumper stickers the courts would strike down the law for violating a right guaranteed by the first amendment. But if, on the other hand, Congress passed a law that put all newly created works in the public domain then that law would stand because the Consitution specifically states it is in their power to do so.
After all, the first thing I want to do when I install a desktop environment is to spend an hour configuring it, instead of using it.
Actually that is the first thing I want to do. I know the keys I want to use to accomplish tasks, the style I want my widgets to look like, what colors and fonts are the most pleasing to my eyes, and which mouse cursors are the easiest for me to see. A control center that allows me to quickly set these preferences is a very handy thing to have indeed.
On the one hand, you have copyrights: the notional right of the copyright holder to prevent others from using the ideas that they've put considerable time and effort into discovering. In the US, this is a constitutional right, and from what I understand, it's thus inalienable.
No, copyright protection is not an "inalienable" right in the US, it is a legislated right which Congress could make disappear at any time.
Sounds like the Sliders' "Net Worth" episode in a way. The thing I can't help wondering about is if a conflict breaks out between those living in ivory cybertowers and the people who disdain the digital age how can the netizons survive? After all it's not like there are many of us who would be comfortable plowing fields from dusk to dawn or slinging manure in the hot summer sun.
Rather than having third party DRM forced on a person, maybe they should just embed a Serial number tag within each song on a CD. Any and/or all audio formats can be updated to support a special comment tag that contains a serial number which would have to be made illegal to tamper with. Each CD then would have its own serial number to identify that CD.
First, making something illegal isn't going to stop people from tampering...if it did there wouldn't be a problem to begin with. Second, all it would take to find the embedded serial number would be to do a diff on two discs and remove the tag. Third, people who care about the legality and/or don't know how to perform a diff would be forced to purchase new players that try to enforce yet another ineffectual copyprotection scheme.
Piracy is and a problem and it is a major hassle for them, and it is causing them to lose money through mass copyright infringement. Further, their point here is not that it isn't "fair use", they're not even discussing fair use, they are talking about exceptions to the DMCA. The DMCA is additional legislation that criminalizes (among other things) the circumvention of copy protection. Fair Use is a case-by-case doctrine in which copyright privileges may be legally ignored for specific purposes.
So how, without violating the DMCA, can citizens access the materials to excercise their fair use rights?
Oddly enough I have a P233MMX running Gentoo, took about a week to get a working system + Apache + MySQL + PHP. So I'd imagine that the jokes about it taking so long don't really apply when you have a semi-modern system.
True. It took less than 24 hours for to have a full blown kde desktop (using every kde*-meta ebuild available) system up and running on a dual opteron machine with 4 gigs of RAM.
But not all the other distros let you turn features off while doing it.
I like Gentoo and use it on a couple of machines but now you're just being ridiculous. Use flags are basically just a way to automate./configure options.
Please, for the love of god, Learn the concept of an MDI. I have not seen a single OSS (GUI) application which uses this basic interface concept.
I'm sure this is a religious issue, but I've not actually seen the arguments against MDIs.
No, it's not a religious issue. You obviously haven't mastered the power of multiple desktops yet. I normally use nine of them and set their bindings to Ctl-Alt-Keypad #, but some people prefer to use a pager. It really makes it easy to keep your work organized. Really, give it try. I'm sure in no time you'll see why there really is no need for MDIs in such an environment.
The RIAA and MPAA have essentially trampled on all of our rights as citizens in order to make some more money.
Not quite. The **AAs don't make laws, they only buy them. It is Congress that has essentially trampled on all of our rights as citizens in order to make some more money.
What copyright, patent does create is an opportunity to be compensated, and it prevents others from infringing on that specific opportunity.
Fourteen year copyrights did all the above while discouraging creators from sitting on their laurels for the rest of their lives and, when you take into account the speed at which reproduction and distribution occurs today, even that term is far too long considering the goal is to promote the advancement of arts and useful sciences.
The length of copyright bears only a superficial resemblance to speed of copying and distribution, and a stronger correlation with effort to create and recoup.
How does a person getting paid the rest of their life for a work they created yesterday encourage them to create a new work tomorrow?
Correct, the history of copyright law and how it has changed innumerable times to reflect new technology would be most useful. Technology, and its use to disseminate information, has advanced in ways that the framers of the constitution likely never dreamed of.
Original copyright law allowed fourteen years for works to be mechanically reproduced and distributed by horse and buggy. Today's copyright law allows life plus nearly a century for works to be electronically reproduced and instantaneously distributed. Where is the sense in this?
Because all the sectors on my hard drive are encrypted on the fly. When you read it directly in other computer all you get is nearly random gibberish. There's not even a proper filesystem on it. Only after you mount it giving my long and convoluted passphrase the OS decrypts the sectors on the fly, so you can read the files. Switch the power off, reboot my machine or unmount the partition and there is no way to access my data again.
Is that easier to grok?
Interesting, but the data can still be accessed even if decrypting it would be a bitch.
What the hell do US and UK people have against a national ID card? It's just a mean of proving your identity, here in France we've had it for well, decades before I were born. A driver license can be equally used. At least, unlike in the US, people without driver license have papers.
Perhaps it's because many of us grew up with movies depicting SS guards demanding to see the papers of French citizens in order to stomp out resistence.
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I'd guess his point was that if you want to use ubuntu as an average joe, you can get by perfectly with sudo. Indeed, I did and I could. If you really want to unleash the power of root, well, be prepared to do a bit of work.
Exactly. I've only played a little with Kubuntu but even in Gentoo I find it very rare to actually need to login as root for anything.
I don't believe gp was login in, it's the gksudo equilevant in kde that doesn't work. I've had the same problem with gksudo.
Perhaps, but he also stated the cli was crippled.
Your advice is way too complex for any regular user.
He said he wanted to be root, not a regular user.
I hope you are being sarcastic, but incase you arent....
Nope, I'm serious.
You really think that even 1% of the people that use Bittorrent for acquiring illegal content even cares about the IP system in anyway?
I think most people just don't care about the IP system so they ignore it.
You think the majority would understand what you are talking about if you brought the matter of civil disobediance up with them?
Do you think the majority of people who visited speakeasies during the twenties understood about civil disobedience or did they simply want to share a drink with their friends?
No, its about getting something for 'free', avoiding paying the costs, keeping up with their TV shows before they are broadcast in their country.
Of course people want to get things at little or no cost, and it's only natural that they feel slighted when they can't have things that are available elsewhere. I'm surprised that your surprised about this.
Bittorrent is a superb system that works wonders for distributing game demos and movie trailers etc. By defending its usage to steal IP, your just going to bring the whole system down.
Isn't bringing the IP system down the whole point behind this mass infringement movement?
I whole heartedly agree. Nothing was more irritating to me than to install Kubuntu ( the 'Breezy Badger' distro ) than to find out that I couldn't graphically interface as root, even though it would prompt me with the *psudeo*-root password.
Why didn't you just run "sudo passwd root" and edit your kdmrc to enable root logins if you felt the need for a graphical login?
So, the problem with Network neutrality is that it opens up the DSL and Cable providers up to competition for their other service, and that'a a big disincentive for them to roll it out. I wrote an article about this at the Duke Law & Technology Review.
It seems to me that since the information superhighway is becoming increasingly as important to maintaining a vibrant healthy economy as concrete ones the government should start considering excercising eminent domain to ensure neutrality.
And how did (2b) make Iraq an issue?
It allowed the US government to take advantage of a preexisting law that mandated the overthrowing of Saddam's regime.
It serves the purpose of getting free real estate for non-Muslims in Palestine. Which in turn gives you a base to dominate the oil-rich region.
American's were happily supporting the Saudi's royal couffers before 911, and the only thing hindering peace in the Middle East is the Palestinean refusal to acknowledge Israel's right to exist. Doesn't it just amaze you that land lost by the Ottoman Empire nearly a century ago is still full of so much violence? It's almost as if there are some Muslim's who think that they are "too good" to share a piece of real estate with Jews.
And this is the point where I step back and say that's great... for you and KDE. But not everyone wants or needs that, and plenty of people prefer something that just lets them hit the ground running with well-chosen default settings. And for those people (and I'm one of them), there's GNOME.
The question though is what is wrong with offering both well-chosen defaults to hit the ground running with AND advanced configuration options for those who like to twiddle? Oh, and please don't take any of this wrong. Most of us who question the direction Gnome has taken do so because we'd like to see Linux focus on a unified desktop that fills the needs of all users.
It's not just Congress. There are lots of ways to make "inalienable" rights disappear -- martial law, for example.
Though you are right about the fragility of rights we take for granted it sounds like you are still confused about the difference between an inalienable right and a legislated one. If, for example, Congress were to pass legislation outlawing bumper stickers the courts would strike down the law for violating a right guaranteed by the first amendment. But if, on the other hand, Congress passed a law that put all newly created works in the public domain then that law would stand because the Consitution specifically states it is in their power to do so.
After all, the first thing I want to do when I install a desktop environment is to spend an hour configuring it, instead of using it.
Actually that is the first thing I want to do. I know the keys I want to use to accomplish tasks, the style I want my widgets to look like, what colors and fonts are the most pleasing to my eyes, and which mouse cursors are the easiest for me to see. A control center that allows me to quickly set these preferences is a very handy thing to have indeed.
On the one hand, you have copyrights: the notional right of the copyright holder to prevent others from using the ideas that they've put considerable time and effort into discovering. In the US, this is a constitutional right, and from what I understand, it's thus inalienable.
No, copyright protection is not an "inalienable" right in the US, it is a legislated right which Congress could make disappear at any time.
Sounds like the Sliders' "Net Worth" episode in a way. The thing I can't help wondering about is if a conflict breaks out between those living in ivory cybertowers and the people who disdain the digital age how can the netizons survive? After all it's not like there are many of us who would be comfortable plowing fields from dusk to dawn or slinging manure in the hot summer sun.
Rather than having third party DRM forced on a person, maybe they should just embed a Serial number tag within each song on a CD. Any and/or all audio formats can be updated to support a special comment tag that contains a serial number which would have to be made illegal to tamper with. Each CD then would have its own serial number to identify that CD.
First, making something illegal isn't going to stop people from tampering...if it did there wouldn't be a problem to begin with. Second, all it would take to find the embedded serial number would be to do a diff on two discs and remove the tag. Third, people who care about the legality and/or don't know how to perform a diff would be forced to purchase new players that try to enforce yet another ineffectual copyprotection scheme.
Piracy is and a problem and it is a major hassle for them, and it is causing them to lose money through mass copyright infringement. Further, their point here is not that it isn't "fair use", they're not even discussing fair use, they are talking about exceptions to the DMCA. The DMCA is additional legislation that criminalizes (among other things) the circumvention of copy protection. Fair Use is a case-by-case doctrine in which copyright privileges may be legally ignored for specific purposes.
So how, without violating the DMCA, can citizens access the materials to excercise their fair use rights?
Oddly enough I have a P233MMX running Gentoo, took about a week to get a working system + Apache + MySQL + PHP. So I'd imagine that the jokes about it taking so long don't really apply when you have a semi-modern system.
True. It took less than 24 hours for to have a full blown kde desktop (using every kde*-meta ebuild available) system up and running on a dual opteron machine with 4 gigs of RAM.
But not all the other distros let you turn features off while doing it.
I like Gentoo and use it on a couple of machines but now you're just being ridiculous. Use flags are basically just a way to automate
Please, for the love of god, Learn the concept of an MDI.
I have not seen a single OSS (GUI) application which uses this basic interface concept.
I'm sure this is a religious issue, but I've not actually seen the arguments against MDIs.
No, it's not a religious issue. You obviously haven't mastered the power of multiple desktops yet. I normally use nine of them and set their bindings to Ctl-Alt-Keypad #, but some people prefer to use a pager. It really makes it easy to keep your work organized. Really, give it try. I'm sure in no time you'll see why there really is no need for MDIs in such an environment.
The RIAA and MPAA have essentially trampled on all of our rights as citizens in order to make some more money.
Not quite. The **AAs don't make laws, they only buy them. It is Congress that has essentially trampled on all of our rights as citizens in order to make some more money.
What copyright, patent does create is an opportunity to be compensated, and it prevents others from infringing on that specific opportunity.
Fourteen year copyrights did all the above while discouraging creators from sitting on their laurels for the rest of their lives and, when you take into account the speed at which reproduction and distribution occurs today, even that term is far too long considering the goal is to promote the advancement of arts and useful sciences.
The length of copyright bears only a superficial resemblance to speed of copying and distribution, and a stronger correlation with effort to create and recoup.
How does a person getting paid the rest of their life for a work they created yesterday encourage them to create a new work tomorrow?
Correct, the history of copyright law and how it has changed innumerable times to reflect new technology would be most useful. Technology, and its use to disseminate information, has advanced in ways that the framers of the constitution likely never dreamed of.
Original copyright law allowed fourteen years for works to be mechanically reproduced and distributed by horse and buggy. Today's copyright law allows life plus nearly a century for works to be electronically reproduced and instantaneously distributed. Where is the sense in this?
I was referring to accessing the data, not decrypting it.
Because all the sectors on my hard drive are encrypted on the fly. When you read it directly in other computer all you get is nearly random gibberish. There's not even a proper filesystem on it. Only after you mount it giving my long and convoluted passphrase the OS decrypts the sectors on the fly, so you can read the files. Switch the power off, reboot my machine or unmount the partition and there is no way to access my data again.
Is that easier to grok?
Interesting, but the data can still be accessed even if decrypting it would be a bitch.
Not if you're prompted for a passphrase during boot. Of course, this would require you to shutdown the computer when not in use, but how hard is that?
Why in the world would they have to boot your computer simply to read your hard drive?
What the hell do US and UK people have against a national ID card? It's just a mean of proving your identity, here in France we've had it for well, decades before I were born. A driver license can be equally used. At least, unlike in the US, people without driver license have papers.
Perhaps it's because many of us grew up with movies depicting SS guards demanding to see the papers of French citizens in order to stomp out resistence.