That works out to about $50/server...which as I recall is a little less than the typical 'boxed set' price for any linux distribution.
So, essentially, EV1 just bought 20,000 boxes of "Caldera OpenLinux". Boy, what a "Big Win(tm)" for SCO there. That's quite a discount from the $700 (isn't it supposed to have gone up to $1400 by now?) per server fees they claimed they wanted to demand.
Well, that's the key, isn't it? To me, this implies that your pattern of usage is pretty narrow, compared with the broad range of things you CAN do (if you want to). I don't mean this to sound belittling - it just implies that your pattern of usage fits neatly into the "GUI Desktop computer only" sort of paradigm where Mac OSX seems to be specialized.
Aside from the straightforward matter of license fees and expense for the comparatively specialized hardware (I think I can safely say that for the cost of a Mac OSX computer and OS license, I could build 2 equivalent Linux computers), there's the matter of flexibility.
Linux runs on a much broader range of hardware than OSX. Linux can be installed without a GUI (leaving ability to run on slower hardware and/or leaving more drive space and RAM for other applications) - as someone else already mentioned, OSX without a GUI essentially just leaves a variant of FreeBSD (not a BAD thing, but why pay the premium for OSX if that's what you want?). Linux also seems to run a broader range of legally-free ("libre") software than OSX (OpenOffice, for example - I gather the OSX port is several versions behind, though I suspect if Apple ever decides it wants to move away from MS Office dependency enough to devote some developer time to the issue, OpenOffice for OSX would be brought current pretty quickly)...
Of course, the "freedom" aspect of both Linux and *BSD is important to a lot of us as well.
None of this is particularly important to a 'typical' single-desktop-computer user, which is to say, most users (and in fact for those people, I really do tend to recommend OSX over Linux for their own use), but I for one use my computers as desktops AND a lot of additional things where OSX just isn't optimal.
...as mentioned in this post from a little while back, I've been informally putting together a 'non-internet' wireless access point design as an experiment.
I actually have it working at a basic level (publically-accessible access point, dhcp to hand out IP addresses, BIND configured to hand out the AP's IP as the address for anything they type in [initially] so that they can get to it at any time, web server (to be loaded up with legally-free files for public download)...
Still more to add, but what I have so far does appear to work. I haven't had a chance to make use of it well yet though, to see if anyone uses it (I need to get a higher-powered 802.11b card that can take an external antenna).
If this sort of thing sounds interesting to people, I could try setting up a site devoted to the project somewhere...
Somewhat off topic, but I find myself downright amazed that neither of "the two parties" (bleh) has strongly suggested cutting taxes in half for any entity that makes less than, say, $100,000US/Year. From everything I see, it'd have very little direct affect on tax income (since the less-than-$100,000/year group only pays a small fraction of the income taxes) and yet be wildly popular with those of us in that category (who make a up a voting majority).
One might convincingly argue at the same time that the freed-up "consumer" money that would otherwise have gone to taxes would spur an increase in spending, thus further boosting the income of the "wealthiest 5%"...and in turn boosting tax income at the same time. Everybody wins (at least, you could easily 'spin' it that way).
So...why aren't they doing it?
P.S. Harry Browne's not running this year, is he? Does the Libertarian party have a candidate for the presidential race yet?
Geek culture is worldwide. It's not exactly the same everywhere, but (so far) I've observed it first-hand in Mexico, Trinidad, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and now India, and I assure you, there are many more points of similarity than differences between its various "branches," at least in my (limited) experience.
Here's a mostly-tongue-in-cheek question - should "Geek" be considered a legitimate "ethnic group"? It DOES seem to be a better indicator of cultural values and attitudes than skin color or nationality (i.e. a dark-skinned Geek from somewhere in Africa, a medium-toned-skin Geek from India, and a light-skinned Geek from Finland tend to have a LOT more in common than, say, a "white" orthodox Jew and a "white" neo-nazi skinhead, which the US Census bureau, at least, might tend to lump together into the same category...)
Get it to spread into other languages in addition to Japanese, and add some open source electronic and mechanical toy designs and it might take off.
On a related note, I see O'Reilly and Associates is putting out a "Hardware Hacks for Geeks" book as part of their excellent "Hacks" series - possibly a starting point?
This would be the first scientifically verified instance of alchemy and element transmutation EVER!
I don't think so - I would have sworn that although nobody's succeeded at turning lead into gold yet, they HAVE turned BISMUTH into gold. It only cost them a few billion dollars to build the particle accelerator to do it with, too. And they got, as I recall, 8 whole atoms of Gold in the process...
I'm in the wrong line of work - I should get in on that 'particle physics' scam. "Yes, senator, this $50,000,000,000 grant is absolutely necessary if I am to discover the Pineapple Upside-Down Quark before the Soviets, uh, I mean, Red Chinese, uh, I mean, Terrorists do!"
(Note for any humor impaired particle physicists and/or sympathisers reading this - YES, it's a joke! Jeez...)
With, supposedly, some prohibition-era laws still on the books (reportedly allowing confiscation of huge ranges of property that are even somewhat connected to "bootlegging" [e.g. 'moonshine'] and huge taxes for non-denatured ethanol, it suddenly occurs to me that there's something perverse about the government subsidizing poisoned varieties of ethanol while making citizens pay through the nose for non-(comparatively)-poisonous ethanol...
That does it, I'm takin' this Aluminum Foil Deflector Beanie off again. Every time I put it on I start thinking unhappy thoughts...
Re:Point of Sale -- that's all
on
SCOoby Snacks
·
· Score: 1
Given the apparent quality of the proprietary Point Of Sale software that was coming out of a company that I used to work for, I'd say you were correct...
The sad thing is, it STILL seemed to be one of the better proprietary packages available in its niche at the time. Nowadays, though, I think a skilled coder could replicate pretty much all of its features with open source components in a month or so...
No, it wasn't SCO's stuff - old MS-DOS based system. However, I'd be surprised if similar arguments didn't apply for most proprietary 'niche' programs (which seem to lack real competition to keep them from being shoddy) in most areas.
Why does Windows now default to hiding file extensions?
That's to make everything seem "friendlier". Here's an analogy that might help if you end up talking to someone who's confused by the concept.
The file extension is like a "family name". The intention is that by knowing the file's "full name" ("ReadMe.pdf" - "First name" ReadMe, "Last name" pdf) you know where they "live" (which application to use to view it). The "pdf family" lives in the "Adobe Acrobat Reader" (well, okay, in my case it's KGhostview), so if you want to "see" ReadMe.pdf, you know where to go do to so.
Microsoft, however, thinks that's too formal, and assumes their customers will be intimidated if they're not talked to like children (am I the only one that thinks "My Network Places" sounds grossly condescending?), so they leave off the family name to sound "friendly".
Of course, that means when ReadMe.pdf.exe shows up, the virtual clueless, smiling, allegedly helpful guy in the butterfly suit that lives in the computer buzzes you and says "Hey, ReadMe is here to see you, should I let him in?" regardless...but doesn't that sound friendly?:-) ("Well, mister ReadMe, he says he knows you because he clicked YES. Go right in through the door marked "executables", Mr. exe...")
You know, I was ABOUT to post a comment along the lines of hitting F1 for help because it's Windows...
But then it occurred to me - it's not difficult to add help files to Windows, is it? Perhaps some virus/worm/trojan related help files ought to be written up and distributed for people. Then they really CAN get "MyDoom help"...
Better still, the helpfiles and installation tools can be sent via email attachments. Then only the people who really need it will end up installing it....
If you want something to be easier to do/use you must sacrifice security, and if you want security, you end up sacrificing convienence. Those are just the facts of life, and people need to realize it.
After a decade-and-a-half of tech support, I tend to agree. Strongly.
It's like saying "many accidents are caused by people getting confused and distracted by road conditions. Cars should have computerized autopilots so nobody has to know how to drive them. That would solve everything."
In a way it's unfortunate that limited "net appliances" have never taken off - to stretch the analogy further, they're sort of the equivalent of "mass transit" - you don't need to know how to drive at all but you're limited in "where you can go(tm)" when you use them. People who can't or won't learn to drive safely can use buses and trains, so perhaps we need a computerized equivalent for people who can't or won't learn how to operate a computer safely?...
so when your car breaks down, go to the local auto store, pick up a Chilton's and get to work.
That's not what he's saying - he's saying (to use the same analogy) "Before you get in a car and go driving around, you need to learn things like 'if the sign says STOP you should stop' and 'You should have the oil in your car changed every 3000 miles' and 'don't drive drunk' and 'tires wear out eventually, you have to replace them regularly' and 'if you don't put gas in the car, it'll stop working when it runs out' and 'if you're driving your shiny new sportscar and you come to a sign that says "unpaved road" you may want to reconsider shooting along it at 80 miles per hour'..." and similar things that people are expected to learn before they start cruising around the highway. Stuff that you find in basic driver-education books.
How would you feel if you were a mechanic and you constantly had friends asking "hey, I can't figure out how to turn my lights on, can you help me?" or "Hey, there's smoke and unusually loud noises coming out of my engine, can you help me? ("No, what's a 'oil change'?")" or "Hey, people keep getting really mad at me whenever I drive through an intersection with one of those red light things over it. Must be something wrong with my car, can you fix it?...."
It really does baffle me. Cars are just as complicated "internally" as a typical computer setup, from an end-user perspective. Nobody expects a car driver to know how to debug the car's computer controls or to explain what "lock-up transmission" means or to explain the chemistry of gasoline combustion, but they ARE expected to have a reasonable amount of cluefulness when they drive...and MOST people don't have trouble managing that. Why can't they also manage that with the now-equally-ubiquitous computers? (Similarly, why do computer users think they're being asked to become computer engineers when someone suggests they learn a few basic rules and procedures?...)
(If a car user can recognize that when a "message" appears on their "screen" (a sign seen through the windshield) saying "DO NOT ENTER" they have no trouble recognizing that they need to go a different way, but when they see a message on their computer screen saying "don't click this" they do it anyway?...
From here, there is precisely ONE thing broken that I keep hoping someone will figure out how to fix...
For some bizarre reason, on my laptop, when the power source state changes from what it was at startup (i.e. if I plug in AC after I've powered on from battery, or if I unplug from AC after starting up on AC) I lose the Synaptics touchpad completely, and can't get it to work again without a complete power-down and restart.
Very annoying, but not totally fatal since USB mouse still works, and it doesn't appear to affect anything else. I keep seeing tweaks to the synaptics, ps2-mouse, and acpi parts of 2.6, so maybe one of these days they'll get it fixed.
I reported the problem to the kernel list, but had to disable the 'sub-mailbox' I was using as my email address because it started getting bombarded with the "Microsoft security update" trojan (got really tired of having my bandwidth clogged by downloading all of those plus the bounces...)...(When my "Aluminum Foil Deflector Beanie" is on, I find myself wondering if a rabid Microsoft fan is monitoring the linux kernel mailing list for addresses to harass...)
Since September 11, US security agencies have increasingly turned to technology to help them process website postings, internet chat and e-mail traffic....and still no sign of Osama Bin Laden.
For some strange reason, whenever I put on my Aluminum Foil Deflector Beanie I find myself wondering if they don't already KNOW where Osama is but they're putting off going in to 'get' him until the most politically advantageous time. Say, a couple of months before the US Presidential election?...
Well, thanks to his spamming operation suddenly bombarding me with piles of messages at my work address, I've gone to the effort of completely firewalling his netblock from my mailservers. Along with several other spamhaus-listed netblocks. So, to all of you OTHER spammers who can no longer get to the servers at work, you can blame "Allied Marketing Promotions" for getting you cut off completely.
It was odd, over the last weekend I suddenly started getting about 20 "Allied Marketing Promotions" emails every day, and it annoyed me enough to just cut them off completely. (Having gone through the trouble of configuring my home server to use the Spamhaus blocklist, it already rejects them, thankfully.
GPL says (to paraphrase) "anything you redistribute must have the same terms and no additional requirements"
Xfree86New license says "you are additionally required to include a short statement somewhere"
It's not that there's anything "bad" about the new XFree86 license, it's just 'letter-of-the-law' incompatible with the GPL "no further restrictions" terms, which means "letter of the law" problems trying to legally redistribute XFree86-derived GPL projects.
Heck, a requirement saying "licensee also agrees never to rape a dead puppy and make a stew of its head to serve to Ukrainian males between the ages of 28 and 29" would have the same problem, despite almost never becoming a real-world issue...
is there a hostap-type linux driver for prism GT chipsets yet?
Just a followup to this part of my own post - evidently, according to the January 8th 2004 "News" post at www.prism54.org (Prism GT driver for Linux) they DO have "Master" mode working and you CAN use supported cards as an access point. Nifty, now I've got an excuse to upgrade my "main" laptop's wireless card to an 802.11g and use the 802.11b that I'm currently on for my little project...
Vehicle-mounted ACCESS POINT?...
on
802.11 for Vehicles?
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· Score: 3, Interesting
I've been toying with a related idea - but instead of setting up a 'client' system, I was considering trying to set up a portable "access point" and internal "network" in a vehicle.
I find it odd that even today nobody blinks if someone says they're building a LAN and doesn't mention internet access, but if someone says "wifi" it's automatically assumed it's only for The Internet(tm)...
I'm thinking of taking a "scrounged" ancient laptop, Prism 2/2.5/3-based 802.11b card, hostap (is there a hostap-type linux driver for prism GT chipsets yet?), and a trimmed down linux distro running dhcp, dns, and web servers (maybe even Samba) to provide 'local network only' connections to passers by as I travel, just as an experiment. Maybe even some sort of 'chat' facility. (Mainly just because I'm curious how many people would notice, how many people would immediately disconnect when they got the "this doesn't provide internet access" page, and how many would browse the [legally] free downloads, "sign" the guestbook, and so on...)
On the other hand, I'd also like to figure out how to interface with Kismet so as to "pause" it when a potentially-open network is detected and have a script check to see if it's REALLY open (a lot of "open" networks seem to still restrict by MAC address, or aren't running DHCP servers, or otherwise are not designed to be connected to by just anyone) and perhaps "burst" a quick email send/recieve as I drive by before having Kismet resume scanning...
Slashdot Mirror
That works out to about $50/server...which as I recall is a little less than the typical 'boxed set' price for any linux distribution.
So, essentially, EV1 just bought 20,000 boxes of "Caldera OpenLinux". Boy, what a "Big Win(tm)" for SCO there. That's quite a discount from the $700 (isn't it supposed to have gone up to $1400 by now?) per server fees they claimed they wanted to demand.
Well, that's the key, isn't it? To me, this implies that your pattern of usage is pretty narrow, compared with the broad range of things you CAN do (if you want to). I don't mean this to sound belittling - it just implies that your pattern of usage fits neatly into the "GUI Desktop computer only" sort of paradigm where Mac OSX seems to be specialized.
Aside from the straightforward matter of license fees and expense for the comparatively specialized hardware (I think I can safely say that for the cost of a Mac OSX computer and OS license, I could build 2 equivalent Linux computers), there's the matter of flexibility.
Linux runs on a much broader range of hardware than OSX. Linux can be installed without a GUI (leaving ability to run on slower hardware and/or leaving more drive space and RAM for other applications) - as someone else already mentioned, OSX without a GUI essentially just leaves a variant of FreeBSD (not a BAD thing, but why pay the premium for OSX if that's what you want?). Linux also seems to run a broader range of legally-free ("libre") software than OSX (OpenOffice, for example - I gather the OSX port is several versions behind, though I suspect if Apple ever decides it wants to move away from MS Office dependency enough to devote some developer time to the issue, OpenOffice for OSX would be brought current pretty quickly)...
Of course, the "freedom" aspect of both Linux and *BSD is important to a lot of us as well.
None of this is particularly important to a 'typical' single-desktop-computer user, which is to say, most users (and in fact for those people, I really do tend to recommend OSX over Linux for their own use), but I for one use my computers as desktops AND a lot of additional things where OSX just isn't optimal.
...as mentioned in this post from a little while back, I've been informally putting together a 'non-internet' wireless access point design as an experiment.
I actually have it working at a basic level (publically-accessible access point, dhcp to hand out IP addresses, BIND configured to hand out the AP's IP as the address for anything they type in [initially] so that they can get to it at any time, web server (to be loaded up with legally-free files for public download)...
Still more to add, but what I have so far does appear to work. I haven't had a chance to make use of it well yet though, to see if anyone uses it (I need to get a higher-powered 802.11b card that can take an external antenna).
If this sort of thing sounds interesting to people, I could try setting up a site devoted to the project somewhere...
More officially known as "5th edition"....
Somewhat off topic, but I find myself downright amazed that neither of "the two parties" (bleh) has strongly suggested cutting taxes in half for any entity that makes less than, say, $100,000US/Year. From everything I see, it'd have very little direct affect on tax income (since the less-than-$100,000/year group only pays a small fraction of the income taxes) and yet be wildly popular with those of us in that category (who make a up a voting majority).
One might convincingly argue at the same time that the freed-up "consumer" money that would otherwise have gone to taxes would spur an increase in spending, thus further boosting the income of the "wealthiest 5%"...and in turn boosting tax income at the same time. Everybody wins (at least, you could easily 'spin' it that way).
So...why aren't they doing it?
P.S. Harry Browne's not running this year, is he? Does the Libertarian party have a candidate for the presidential race yet?
Here's a mostly-tongue-in-cheek question - should "Geek" be considered a legitimate "ethnic group"? It DOES seem to be a better indicator of cultural values and attitudes than skin color or nationality (i.e. a dark-skinned Geek from somewhere in Africa, a medium-toned-skin Geek from India, and a light-skinned Geek from Finland tend to have a LOT more in common than, say, a "white" orthodox Jew and a "white" neo-nazi skinhead, which the US Census bureau, at least, might tend to lump together into the same category...)
...Open Source Toys?
Get it to spread into other languages in addition to Japanese, and add some open source electronic and mechanical toy designs and it might take off.
On a related note, I see O'Reilly and Associates is putting out a "Hardware Hacks for Geeks" book as part of their excellent "Hacks" series - possibly a starting point?
I don't think so - I would have sworn that although nobody's succeeded at turning lead into gold yet, they HAVE turned BISMUTH into gold. It only cost them a few billion dollars to build the particle accelerator to do it with, too. And they got, as I recall, 8 whole atoms of Gold in the process...
I'm in the wrong line of work - I should get in on that 'particle physics' scam. "Yes, senator, this $50,000,000,000 grant is absolutely necessary if I am to discover the Pineapple Upside-Down Quark before the Soviets, uh, I mean, Red Chinese, uh, I mean, Terrorists do!"
(Note for any humor impaired particle physicists and/or sympathisers reading this - YES, it's a joke! Jeez...)
With, supposedly, some prohibition-era laws still on the books (reportedly allowing confiscation of huge ranges of property that are even somewhat connected to "bootlegging" [e.g. 'moonshine'] and huge taxes for non-denatured ethanol, it suddenly occurs to me that there's something perverse about the government subsidizing poisoned varieties of ethanol while making citizens pay through the nose for non-(comparatively)-poisonous ethanol...
That does it, I'm takin' this Aluminum Foil Deflector Beanie off again. Every time I put it on I start thinking unhappy thoughts...
Given the apparent quality of the proprietary Point Of Sale software that was coming out of a company that I used to work for, I'd say you were correct...
The sad thing is, it STILL seemed to be one of the better proprietary packages available in its niche at the time. Nowadays, though, I think a skilled coder could replicate pretty much all of its features with open source components in a month or so...
No, it wasn't SCO's stuff - old MS-DOS based system. However, I'd be surprised if similar arguments didn't apply for most proprietary 'niche' programs (which seem to lack real competition to keep them from being shoddy) in most areas.
True, although I'd say tech support was less like plumbing and accounting and more like proctology.
Except without the glamour and high pay that comes with being a medical professional...
How long before somebody figures it out, and programs a "Furby to Tamagotchi" translation gateway on their IR-equipped laptop?
At least, until the computer gets the tamagotchi pregnant while the owner is surfing porn...
That's to make everything seem "friendlier". Here's an analogy that might help if you end up talking to someone who's confused by the concept.
The file extension is like a "family name". The intention is that by knowing the file's "full name" ("ReadMe.pdf" - "First name" ReadMe, "Last name" pdf) you know where they "live" (which application to use to view it). The "pdf family" lives in the "Adobe Acrobat Reader" (well, okay, in my case it's KGhostview), so if you want to "see" ReadMe.pdf, you know where to go do to so.
Microsoft, however, thinks that's too formal, and assumes their customers will be intimidated if they're not talked to like children (am I the only one that thinks "My Network Places" sounds grossly condescending?), so they leave off the family name to sound "friendly".
Of course, that means when ReadMe.pdf.exe shows up, the virtual clueless, smiling, allegedly helpful guy in the butterfly suit that lives in the computer buzzes you and says "Hey, ReadMe is here to see you, should I let him in?" regardless...but doesn't that sound friendly? :-) ("Well, mister ReadMe, he says he knows you because he clicked YES. Go right in through the door marked "executables", Mr. exe...")
You know, I was ABOUT to post a comment along the lines of hitting F1 for help because it's Windows...
But then it occurred to me - it's not difficult to add help files to Windows, is it? Perhaps some virus/worm/trojan related help files ought to be written up and distributed for people. Then they really CAN get "MyDoom help"...
Better still, the helpfiles and installation tools can be sent via email attachments. Then only the people who really need it will end up installing it....
After a decade-and-a-half of tech support, I tend to agree. Strongly.
It's like saying "many accidents are caused by people getting confused and distracted by road conditions. Cars should have computerized autopilots so nobody has to know how to drive them. That would solve everything."
In a way it's unfortunate that limited "net appliances" have never taken off - to stretch the analogy further, they're sort of the equivalent of "mass transit" - you don't need to know how to drive at all but you're limited in "where you can go(tm)" when you use them. People who can't or won't learn to drive safely can use buses and trains, so perhaps we need a computerized equivalent for people who can't or won't learn how to operate a computer safely?...
That's not what he's saying - he's saying (to use the same analogy) "Before you get in a car and go driving around, you need to learn things like 'if the sign says STOP you should stop' and 'You should have the oil in your car changed every 3000 miles' and 'don't drive drunk' and 'tires wear out eventually, you have to replace them regularly' and 'if you don't put gas in the car, it'll stop working when it runs out' and 'if you're driving your shiny new sportscar and you come to a sign that says "unpaved road" you may want to reconsider shooting along it at 80 miles per hour'..." and similar things that people are expected to learn before they start cruising around the highway. Stuff that you find in basic driver-education books.
How would you feel if you were a mechanic and you constantly had friends asking "hey, I can't figure out how to turn my lights on, can you help me?" or "Hey, there's smoke and unusually loud noises coming out of my engine, can you help me? ("No, what's a 'oil change'?")" or "Hey, people keep getting really mad at me whenever I drive through an intersection with one of those red light things over it. Must be something wrong with my car, can you fix it?...."
It really does baffle me. Cars are just as complicated "internally" as a typical computer setup, from an end-user perspective. Nobody expects a car driver to know how to debug the car's computer controls or to explain what "lock-up transmission" means or to explain the chemistry of gasoline combustion, but they ARE expected to have a reasonable amount of cluefulness when they drive...and MOST people don't have trouble managing that. Why can't they also manage that with the now-equally-ubiquitous computers? (Similarly, why do computer users think they're being asked to become computer engineers when someone suggests they learn a few basic rules and procedures?...)
(If a car user can recognize that when a "message" appears on their "screen" (a sign seen through the windshield) saying "DO NOT ENTER" they have no trouble recognizing that they need to go a different way, but when they see a message on their computer screen saying "don't click this" they do it anyway?...
I'll also add a plug for GPSDrive, which can run alongside Kismet and display your position "live" on a variety of different maps...
It also displays the position of the AP's as estimated by the running copy of Kismet.
Hey, if they can have PHP-GTK, why not?
If they did, I'd certainly experiment with it.
From here, there is precisely ONE thing broken that I keep hoping someone will figure out how to fix...
For some bizarre reason, on my laptop, when the power source state changes from what it was at startup (i.e. if I plug in AC after I've powered on from battery, or if I unplug from AC after starting up on AC) I lose the Synaptics touchpad completely, and can't get it to work again without a complete power-down and restart.
Very annoying, but not totally fatal since USB mouse still works, and it doesn't appear to affect anything else. I keep seeing tweaks to the synaptics, ps2-mouse, and acpi parts of 2.6, so maybe one of these days they'll get it fixed.
I reported the problem to the kernel list, but had to disable the 'sub-mailbox' I was using as my email address because it started getting bombarded with the "Microsoft security update" trojan (got really tired of having my bandwidth clogged by downloading all of those plus the bounces...)...(When my "Aluminum Foil Deflector Beanie" is on, I find myself wondering if a rabid Microsoft fan is monitoring the linux kernel mailing list for addresses to harass...)
For some strange reason, whenever I put on my Aluminum Foil Deflector Beanie I find myself wondering if they don't already KNOW where Osama is but they're putting off going in to 'get' him until the most politically advantageous time. Say, a couple of months before the US Presidential election?...
THOSE bastards????
Well, thanks to his spamming operation suddenly bombarding me with piles of messages at my work address, I've gone to the effort of completely firewalling his netblock from my mailservers. Along with several other spamhaus-listed netblocks. So, to all of you OTHER spammers who can no longer get to the servers at work, you can blame "Allied Marketing Promotions" for getting you cut off completely.
It was odd, over the last weekend I suddenly started getting about 20 "Allied Marketing Promotions" emails every day, and it annoyed me enough to just cut them off completely. (Having gone through the trouble of configuring my home server to use the Spamhaus blocklist, it already rejects them, thankfully.
Strange - suddenly "Darl McBride, Reanimator" sounds like a GREAT title for a comedy/horror movie...
From here, it looks like it's just a matter of :
- GPL says (to paraphrase) "anything you redistribute must have the same terms and no additional requirements"
- Xfree86New license says "you are additionally required to include a short statement somewhere"
It's not that there's anything "bad" about the new XFree86 license, it's just 'letter-of-the-law' incompatible with the GPL "no further restrictions" terms, which means "letter of the law" problems trying to legally redistribute XFree86-derived GPL projects.Heck, a requirement saying "licensee also agrees never to rape a dead puppy and make a stew of its head to serve to Ukrainian males between the ages of 28 and 29" would have the same problem, despite almost never becoming a real-world issue...
Just a followup to this part of my own post - evidently, according to the January 8th 2004 "News" post at www.prism54.org (Prism GT driver for Linux) they DO have "Master" mode working and you CAN use supported cards as an access point. Nifty, now I've got an excuse to upgrade my "main" laptop's wireless card to an 802.11g and use the 802.11b that I'm currently on for my little project...
I've been toying with a related idea - but instead of setting up a 'client' system, I was considering trying to set up a portable "access point" and internal "network" in a vehicle.
I find it odd that even today nobody blinks if someone says they're building a LAN and doesn't mention internet access, but if someone says "wifi" it's automatically assumed it's only for The Internet(tm)...
I'm thinking of taking a "scrounged" ancient laptop, Prism 2/2.5/3-based 802.11b card, hostap (is there a hostap-type linux driver for prism GT chipsets yet?), and a trimmed down linux distro running dhcp, dns, and web servers (maybe even Samba) to provide 'local network only' connections to passers by as I travel, just as an experiment. Maybe even some sort of 'chat' facility. (Mainly just because I'm curious how many people would notice, how many people would immediately disconnect when they got the "this doesn't provide internet access" page, and how many would browse the [legally] free downloads, "sign" the guestbook, and so on...)
On the other hand, I'd also like to figure out how to interface with Kismet so as to "pause" it when a potentially-open network is detected and have a script check to see if it's REALLY open (a lot of "open" networks seem to still restrict by MAC address, or aren't running DHCP servers, or otherwise are not designed to be connected to by just anyone) and perhaps "burst" a quick email send/recieve as I drive by before having Kismet resume scanning...