I guess you're right. I think there's probably two groups...people that really "follow" their distro (read newsletters, post in forum, etc), and people who just want it to work. Or maybe most people, like me, bounce between the two. I guess I just hope that, should the distro that I use become compromised, people will spot things and post about it on sites like these.
It's not that being open source automatically makes code more trustworthy...it just removes one source of doubt (not having code). But even for the things I build myself, it's not like someone could slip some code in there and I'd know about it.
And everybody has to trust the compiler. At some point, somebody or something has to be trusted. That does not mean that all software is equally trustworthy.
It's pretty normal for a distro to patch or build their slightly differently than another. I wouldn't call it sketchy...if you don't trust the package maintainers then you shouldn't use that distro.
In the cases discussed at that link, the purpose of using the GPL (as opposed to the LGPL) is to make other code be GPL.
Nothing wrong with that. Just as people are free to use or not use FOSS, developers are free to incorporate or not incorporate such code into their projects.
What makes you think there is a market for a console that is designed to run free software? I venture that there is no such market because ability to run F/OSS on their game consoles is not a priority for most console-buying consumers.
Look at the GP2X...by all accounts it sold at least 50,000 units. Linux firmware, open SDK. It's not a set-top box, nor is it something for Nintendo to be worried about, but I wouldn't mind selling 50,000 of something. They would not have sold as many if it was tied down. Video game companies do not jump at the chance to develop for a niche platform when the DS is out there.
I believe in personal responsibility, and voting with my money is part of that. I don't feel like I'm entitled to anything. But free markets only work when everybody has perfect information, and the tech industry are masters of FUD and deceit. People complain because there is a lot of unfairness. There's a lot of whining too, but it's not always unwarranted.
My cable internet connection used to drop frequently, two or three times a day. I called tech support there and they kept saying "buy a UPS" but I insisted on having someone come to the house. During the house visit the tech determined that our cable signal was much weaker than normal and they just bumped up the dBs. Did a lot less rebooting.
What finally got me a really good connection was when I replaced my old POS Netgear with a WRT54GL + tomato. I probably reboot that once in a couple of months, if that.
You can get a rock-solid router like a 2600, but the better ones aren't usually all-in-one (router + switch + AP), nor are they $50 new.
The only time our Pix at work ever went down was when the UPS it was attached to died (which I thought was pretty funny).
I really don't understand why everyone thinks a little bad press in the tech sector is going to spell doom for the ISO. Yeah, MS gamed them completely and easily. But I'd like to know how many companies, when deciding to go ISO (which, btw, has nothing to do with the reputation of the ISO, just your ability to do business with other 9001-certified places) will say, "hold on guys, Fred in IT says the ISO isn't 'relevant' anymore...let's all just go home".
Not to mention, a lot of the hardware-pushing was actually hardware upgrades. Early NES games were limited by the high cost of ROM memory. As that went down, length of games and amount of artwork went up. The SNES made it (relatively) easy to add coprocessors like the SuperFX to the games, and the more advanced games like Mario Kart used them.
To be sure, it happens with disc-based games too. But I think it's most noticeable with the NES and SNES (not so much with the Genesis/MegaDrive for whatever reason, at least from what I saw).
The NES saw the release of something like 700 games. I think most were Mega Man titles, actually. A lot were high-quality, but most were complete crap, even worse than South Park for N64. I guess they were lovable, though. Of the games I had/have, some are now called classics, depsite the fact that they're basically unplayable, or terrible adaptations of movies/shows (it didn't start with 3D consoles...check out Friday the 13th). Something that controlled like Ironsword would be laughed at these days. But at least it had cool songs and artwork, not many of them even had that.
Now it's the FPS you can't escape from. Back then you had your platformers, beat-em-up platformers, action platformers, and the occasional top-down game. You'd think some of the third-party software makers could have come up with a decent platform engine, but they didn't. For every playable game like Mega Man or Shatterhand, there was Wrestlemania or Rollergames, where "winning" meant not developing childhood arthritis. Don't get me wrong, I loved those games, but I don't think quality has gone downhill overall from the 80s. Up, if anything. There'll always be the ones you love to remember and the ones you would like to forget.
Unless you're in a swing state, I doubt it counts much anyway. The electoral votes are usually all-or-nothing, and my state has voted democratic for the last 4 elections. Given the amazing job Bush is doing, I expect that to stay the same. Obama doesn't need my vote, and at this point the only way he'd get it is if he went to AT&T's head office and started gunning people down Rambo-style.
AFAIK copyright on fonts only applies to the computer code. The design of a typeface could not be copyrighted in the US, but I am not sure if that's changed recently or how it works in other countries.
My feeling has always been sort of the opposite. The code is out there, it's free as in freedom and people can either use it or not use it. I don't consider it to be a moral imperative to get people off of Windows. But linux does get raditional marketing in the IT sphere from the likes of IBM & HP. Besides, it's useful, no-strings-attached, and more great software is written to run on top of it every day. It sells itself, and where it doesn't, the worst that happens is the code is still there, free to all.
As far as calling the software "a $300 value, free!" or something along those lines, the GPL means I can get linux for free (real free, not "but wait, there's more!" free). Let's say Red Hat comes up with some crazy infomercial-type marketing scheme. People who just want the code can just sidestep RHEL and grab CentOS. It's not that RH sells support because they never thought to lie about the monetary value of the software. They sell support because it is actually worth something, and people pay for it.
That said, a little extra polish never hurts, and it's something geeks and non-geeks can (usually) agree on. Arch Linux recently did a logo contest and updated the logo and the web page, those slick little extras can get people who are on the fence to try it out. Even though Arch doesn't ship with a GUI:D
Unless they're being casual about it, they won't access the drive in the computer you give them. They'll image it, work on the image, and then use your own computer to beat you with, once they put the drive back in (to make it heavier and thus better for beatings).
*All* applications are about data collection and presentation. But for something like a CRM, you have to be able to work quickly. Web apps are OK for calendaring, but when you're taking somebody's order over the phone and need to work fast, they don't hold up.
That's not saying they won't get there though, even within a year. Just thinking of my own users' requirements, I think the biggest problem with the browser is that it steals a lot of good keyboard shortcuts. Lots of business still use terminal apps that make heavy use of F-keys.
The biggest problem I have with Windows Installer packages is when you edit values in the package, and the package installs normally, as if you hadn't made the changes. Or something works once (let's say, a value to disable auto-update) which is then broken during the next release, without warning. I've never seen Adobe Reader or the JRE install the way I am expecting them to. No matter what, you still end up screwing with individual registry entries on the workstations.
You probably already know this, but you can do a lot with Orca, the MS tool, and sometimes this means you don't have to screw with the custom transform apps.
I get the feeling that MSI is purposely limited because people who need really robust software management for Windows are pushed to buy Systems Management Server. This annoys the crap out of me -- only Microsoft could ship a server OS without decent management tools, then charge an extra thousand dollars for the tools, and not get called out for it.
From what I have seen, the security on incoming containers is actually pretty good.
But there are just too many that come in, and better security there would not be noticed by anyone. Hence, it's not good security theater.
That is the point of all this: security theater. Our government wants to act unilaterally abroad, and be above criticism at home. Security theater allows them to do both. I wonder how many senators have stock in popcorn manufacturers?
I definitely agree. I think the problem is that the court can't instruct the jury to give extra consideration to a particular piece of evidence, even if it seems to deserve it. As a juror, you're expected to make up your own mind, but you have to begin by considering each piece of evidence as it is presented. Check this out:
Man rapes woman, confesses to it in jail, at which point DNA evidence collected at the scene is found to match up with his. The defense successfully appeals his conviction because the court instructed the jury that DNA evidence was "reliable" and thus seemed to favor it over other evidence.
In my mind, as long as the proper lab procedures are followed (no one dropped a pizza slice onto the sample, etc), DNA evidence is beyond reliable. Applying Bayes' theorem, even starting from the idea that the person was probably innocent, you still get odds in the area of 10^5 or 10^6 to 1. In geek terms: six nines. Where else in life can you be *that* sure of something?
In any case, if you want to sit on a jury, keep your responses limited to yes and no. Jurors are the most important and powerful people in the courtroom, but everything goes more smoothly for the lawyers if they pack the jury with people who aren't the question-asking type. People who will convict someone on an eyewitness testimony and the fact that he didn't shave before the trial, or let someone off because he seemed nice. This makes the lawyers' job easier.
I think that for the cases where the Innocence Project gets involved, the problem is not the existence of circumstantial evidence, but that even then the evidence turns out to be highly lacking, highly suspicious, or both.
That said, the one time I had to show up for jury duty, I wasn't chosen, for saying something like that. After being asked if I felt comfortable handing out a guilty verdict in this particular criminal case, I said "I guess it depends on the evidence". This was my honest response and not a wisecrack. The judge was sort of annoyed and told me that in our state, jurors are instructed to weigh testimony equally with physical evidence. I said something about not being sure I could do that. I was not invited to sit on that jury.
> Creating permanent law to address temporary or one-off social problems
> or self-destructionism is exactly why our legal system is so screwed up today. Hear, hear!
Obligatory "Man For All Seasons" quotation: WIFE: Arrest him!
MORE: For what?
WIFE: He's dangerous!
ROPER: For all we know he's a spy!
DAUGHTER: Father, that man's bad!
MORE: There's no law against that!
ROPER: There is, God's law!
MORE: Then let God arrest him!
WIFE: While you talk he's gone!
MORE: And go he should, if he were the Devil himself, until he broke the law!
ROPER: So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!
MORE: Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?
ROPER: Yes, I'd cut down every law in England to do that!
MORE: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat?
This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's! And if you cut them down (and you're just the man to do it!), do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then?
Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!
For it to be murder and not something else, it has to be intentional. Some people can be "compelled" by their illness. The insanity defense is saying that what you did was not under your control (no "malice aforethought"). You can always try someone for recklessness or manslaughter, being legally insane doesn't remove responsibility for what happened. But murder requires that you know what you're doing and intended to do it.
Slashdot Mirror
I guess you're right. I think there's probably two groups...people that really "follow" their distro (read newsletters, post in forum, etc), and people who just want it to work. Or maybe most people, like me, bounce between the two. I guess I just hope that, should the distro that I use become compromised, people will spot things and post about it on sites like these.
It's not that being open source automatically makes code more trustworthy...it just removes one source of doubt (not having code). But even for the things I build myself, it's not like someone could slip some code in there and I'd know about it.
And everybody has to trust the compiler. At some point, somebody or something has to be trusted. That does not mean that all software is equally trustworthy.
It only goes so far though. If the client insists on using MS Publisher, you should drop them, if only to preserve your sanity.
It's pretty normal for a distro to patch or build their slightly differently than another. I wouldn't call it sketchy...if you don't trust the package maintainers then you shouldn't use that distro.
In the cases discussed at that link, the purpose of using the GPL (as opposed to the LGPL) is to make other code be GPL.
Nothing wrong with that. Just as people are free to use or not use FOSS, developers are free to incorporate or not incorporate such code into their projects.
What makes you think there is a market for a console that is designed to run free software? I venture that there is no such market because ability to run F/OSS on their game consoles is not a priority for most console-buying consumers.
Look at the GP2X...by all accounts it sold at least 50,000 units. Linux firmware, open SDK. It's not a set-top box, nor is it something for Nintendo to be worried about, but I wouldn't mind selling 50,000 of something. They would not have sold as many if it was tied down. Video game companies do not jump at the chance to develop for a niche platform when the DS is out there.
I believe in personal responsibility, and voting with my money is part of that. I don't feel like I'm entitled to anything. But free markets only work when everybody has perfect information, and the tech industry are masters of FUD and deceit. People complain because there is a lot of unfairness. There's a lot of whining too, but it's not always unwarranted.
What if it's just dirt cheap gear, and they weren't willing to pay the extra for something good?
I don't think this is all that bad, BWT...there's more to life than routers, after all, and some people would rather save the cash.
My cable internet connection used to drop frequently, two or three times a day. I called tech support there and they kept saying "buy a UPS" but I insisted on having someone come to the house. During the house visit the tech determined that our cable signal was much weaker than normal and they just bumped up the dBs. Did a lot less rebooting.
What finally got me a really good connection was when I replaced my old POS Netgear with a WRT54GL + tomato. I probably reboot that once in a couple of months, if that.
You can get a rock-solid router like a 2600, but the better ones aren't usually all-in-one (router + switch + AP), nor are they $50 new.
The only time our Pix at work ever went down was when the UPS it was attached to died (which I thought was pretty funny).
I really don't understand why everyone thinks a little bad press in the tech sector is going to spell doom for the ISO. Yeah, MS gamed them completely and easily. But I'd like to know how many companies, when deciding to go ISO (which, btw, has nothing to do with the reputation of the ISO, just your ability to do business with other 9001-certified places) will say, "hold on guys, Fred in IT says the ISO isn't 'relevant' anymore...let's all just go home".
Not to mention, a lot of the hardware-pushing was actually hardware upgrades. Early NES games were limited by the high cost of ROM memory. As that went down, length of games and amount of artwork went up. The SNES made it (relatively) easy to add coprocessors like the SuperFX to the games, and the more advanced games like Mario Kart used them.
To be sure, it happens with disc-based games too. But I think it's most noticeable with the NES and SNES (not so much with the Genesis/MegaDrive for whatever reason, at least from what I saw).
The NES saw the release of something like 700 games. I think most were Mega Man titles, actually. A lot were high-quality, but most were complete crap, even worse than South Park for N64. I guess they were lovable, though. Of the games I had/have, some are now called classics, depsite the fact that they're basically unplayable, or terrible adaptations of movies/shows (it didn't start with 3D consoles...check out Friday the 13th). Something that controlled like Ironsword would be laughed at these days. But at least it had cool songs and artwork, not many of them even had that.
Now it's the FPS you can't escape from. Back then you had your platformers, beat-em-up platformers, action platformers, and the occasional top-down game. You'd think some of the third-party software makers could have come up with a decent platform engine, but they didn't. For every playable game like Mega Man or Shatterhand, there was Wrestlemania or Rollergames, where "winning" meant not developing childhood arthritis. Don't get me wrong, I loved those games, but I don't think quality has gone downhill overall from the 80s. Up, if anything. There'll always be the ones you love to remember and the ones you would like to forget.
Unless you're in a swing state, I doubt it counts much anyway. The electoral votes are usually all-or-nothing, and my state has voted democratic for the last 4 elections. Given the amazing job Bush is doing, I expect that to stay the same. Obama doesn't need my vote, and at this point the only way he'd get it is if he went to AT&T's head office and started gunning people down Rambo-style.
AFAIK copyright on fonts only applies to the computer code. The design of a typeface could not be copyrighted in the US, but I am not sure if that's changed recently or how it works in other countries.
The sad thing is, I'm sure someone's done that.
They're getting what they want though (some $90b in domestic spending). They didn't roll over, they very enthusiastically sold us out.
My feeling has always been sort of the opposite. The code is out there, it's free as in freedom and people can either use it or not use it. I don't consider it to be a moral imperative to get people off of Windows. But linux does get raditional marketing in the IT sphere from the likes of IBM & HP. Besides, it's useful, no-strings-attached, and more great software is written to run on top of it every day. It sells itself, and where it doesn't, the worst that happens is the code is still there, free to all.
:D
As far as calling the software "a $300 value, free!" or something along those lines, the GPL means I can get linux for free (real free, not "but wait, there's more!" free). Let's say Red Hat comes up with some crazy infomercial-type marketing scheme. People who just want the code can just sidestep RHEL and grab CentOS. It's not that RH sells support because they never thought to lie about the monetary value of the software. They sell support because it is actually worth something, and people pay for it.
That said, a little extra polish never hurts, and it's something geeks and non-geeks can (usually) agree on. Arch Linux recently did a logo contest and updated the logo and the web page, those slick little extras can get people who are on the fence to try it out. Even though Arch doesn't ship with a GUI
Unless they're being casual about it, they won't access the drive in the computer you give them. They'll image it, work on the image, and then use your own computer to beat you with, once they put the drive back in (to make it heavier and thus better for beatings).
Whoops...I just realized that the web page can take back control of the F-keys. Nice to know.
*All* applications are about data collection and presentation. But for something like a CRM, you have to be able to work quickly. Web apps are OK for calendaring, but when you're taking somebody's order over the phone and need to work fast, they don't hold up.
That's not saying they won't get there though, even within a year. Just thinking of my own users' requirements, I think the biggest problem with the browser is that it steals a lot of good keyboard shortcuts. Lots of business still use terminal apps that make heavy use of F-keys.
The biggest problem I have with Windows Installer packages is when you edit values in the package, and the package installs normally, as if you hadn't made the changes. Or something works once (let's say, a value to disable auto-update) which is then broken during the next release, without warning. I've never seen Adobe Reader or the JRE install the way I am expecting them to. No matter what, you still end up screwing with individual registry entries on the workstations.
You probably already know this, but you can do a lot with Orca, the MS tool, and sometimes this means you don't have to screw with the custom transform apps.
I get the feeling that MSI is purposely limited because people who need really robust software management for Windows are pushed to buy Systems Management Server. This annoys the crap out of me -- only Microsoft could ship a server OS without decent management tools, then charge an extra thousand dollars for the tools, and not get called out for it.
From what I have seen, the security on incoming containers is actually pretty good.
But there are just too many that come in, and better security there would not be noticed by anyone. Hence, it's not good security theater.
That is the point of all this: security theater. Our government wants to act unilaterally abroad, and be above criticism at home. Security theater allows them to do both. I wonder how many senators have stock in popcorn manufacturers?
I definitely agree. I think the problem is that the court can't instruct the jury to give extra consideration to a particular piece of evidence, even if it seems to deserve it. As a juror, you're expected to make up your own mind, but you have to begin by considering each piece of evidence as it is presented. Check this out:
Instructing jury...held improper by appeals court
Man rapes woman, confesses to it in jail, at which point DNA evidence collected at the scene is found to match up with his. The defense successfully appeals his conviction because the court instructed the jury that DNA evidence was "reliable" and thus seemed to favor it over other evidence.
In my mind, as long as the proper lab procedures are followed (no one dropped a pizza slice onto the sample, etc), DNA evidence is beyond reliable. Applying Bayes' theorem, even starting from the idea that the person was probably innocent, you still get odds in the area of 10^5 or 10^6 to 1. In geek terms: six nines. Where else in life can you be *that* sure of something?
In any case, if you want to sit on a jury, keep your responses limited to yes and no. Jurors are the most important and powerful people in the courtroom, but everything goes more smoothly for the lawyers if they pack the jury with people who aren't the question-asking type. People who will convict someone on an eyewitness testimony and the fact that he didn't shave before the trial, or let someone off because he seemed nice. This makes the lawyers' job easier.
I think that for the cases where the Innocence Project gets involved, the problem is not the existence of circumstantial evidence, but that even then the evidence turns out to be highly lacking, highly suspicious, or both.
That said, the one time I had to show up for jury duty, I wasn't chosen, for saying something like that. After being asked if I felt comfortable handing out a guilty verdict in this particular criminal case, I said "I guess it depends on the evidence". This was my honest response and not a wisecrack. The judge was sort of annoyed and told me that in our state, jurors are instructed to weigh testimony equally with physical evidence. I said something about not being sure I could do that. I was not invited to sit on that jury.
> Creating permanent law to address temporary or one-off social problems
> or self-destructionism is exactly why our legal system is so screwed up today.
Hear, hear!
Obligatory "Man For All Seasons" quotation:
WIFE: Arrest him!
MORE: For what?
WIFE: He's dangerous!
ROPER: For all we know he's a spy!
DAUGHTER: Father, that man's bad!
MORE: There's no law against that!
ROPER: There is, God's law!
MORE: Then let God arrest him!
WIFE: While you talk he's gone!
MORE: And go he should, if he were the Devil himself, until he broke the law!
ROPER: So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!
MORE: Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?
ROPER: Yes, I'd cut down every law in England to do that!
MORE: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat?
This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's! And if you cut them down (and you're just the man to do it!), do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then?
Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!
For it to be murder and not something else, it has to be intentional. Some people can be "compelled" by their illness. The insanity defense is saying that what you did was not under your control (no "malice aforethought"). You can always try someone for recklessness or manslaughter, being legally insane doesn't remove responsibility for what happened. But murder requires that you know what you're doing and intended to do it.