They bought D&D and made it a functional system. That makes them pretty cool in my book. I never had a problem with WoTC, though, aside from thinking some of their rules revisions for Magic were kind of stupid.
The problem is not that porn is wrong or a crime, but that it is a liability. Sexual harassment laws are extremely vague, and there are any number of seemingly harmless situations that could get the school sued. Basically, anything that could be slightly offensive to anybody in a vaguely sexual way can fall under these rules. Schools protect themselves from these extremely expensive lawsuits through their AUP, and it is vital that the lab staff enforce those policies. It's far better that peoples surfing be limited "voluntarily" through such a policy than that internet access be censored, or even cut off.
I agree with your sense that there's nothing wrong with pornography, but there are far to many people in the world who are way too uptight and will do anything in their power to prevent people from doing what makes them happy. That includes suing schools into oblivion with sexual harrasment/hostile environment lawsuits.
It's an ethics violation in the sense that, no matter what precautions you might take, it's still a public place, and your actions are exposing someone else to liability. It is certainly within that someone else's rights to defend themselves from that liability, even preemptively, which is what those AUPs are all about.
First of all, I was a tutor, not an admin. I was given some admin duties because I had some knowledge in that area, but I did not create or implement security.
Second, these were Windows 95 boxen. The software that these computers were intended for didn't run on NT, and since this was 3 years ago, there weren't any other options, not that we had the budget to upgrade the OS even if one were available which ran our software and had any kind of security at all. The security model was an AUP posted on the wall above each computer which was enforced by tutors such as myself. The AUP was quite specific regarding user-installed software.
Third, this was a math lab, not an open lab. All the software needed to perform the intended function of those machines was provided already. It was the students who insisted on installing this crap that had no respect for the usability of the machines, since the software they installed, particularly AIM, often hosed up software people needed to do the work for which these machines were intended, which included a PC-based algebra class. I was concerned with usability for people who needed those sytems to do their classwork, not usability for some idiot chatting on AIM.
Fourth, there were open labs within a 10 minute walking distance of mine, though they they had similar AUPs. Anyone who doesn't understand why an AUP would include a clause against user-installed software, which apparently includes you, doesn't know enough about networked environments to be making judgements about the abilities of others. Since you are obviously ignorant, let me enlighten you to the basic facts relevant to our current discussion: User-installed software is responsible for the vast majority of problems, especially in an environment such as a school computer lab. Computers in those environments are there for a reason, and that reason generally does not include chat, games, pornography, etc, and if any of those activities interfere with the the intended purpose of those computers it is the duty of the staff to remedy the problem, which we did by kicking the user out and reimaging the drive.
Finally, for the record, the last time I checked my IQ was in the 150 range. Your prose style suggests that you are well below that mark. Perhaps, in keeping with your world view, you should consider irradiating yourself? You know, leadership by example and all that...
Those students are not there for your convenience, you are there to educate them and provide help and instruction.
Those computers were not there for the student's convenience. It was not an open lab, it was a math lab. Those computers had specific purposes. If people wanted to do stuff like chat, there were open labs within a 10 minute walk where they could do all the chatting they wanted.
The relatively few students who were installing their own software were inconveniencing the students who needed to use those computers for their intended purpose. My job was to help them do that work (which I was very good at) and to enforce the AUP, which included a NO USER-INSTALLED SOFTWARE clause.
Even in an open lab, though I would still have the same policy against user-installed software. In an academic environment, unauthorized software causes about 80% of the problems admins have to deal with. That's why utilities such as ghost exist.
The lab I was working on was not really an open lab, it actually wasn't even primarily a computer lab, but we had some. It was a math lab, and the purpose of the computers was to run some educational programs; in particular we were experimenting with PC-based algebra classes.
We lab personel often allowed people to use the computers for other purposes such as writing papers and such, mostly because the school was actually a little short on open lab computers, and it wasn't uncommon for those labs to be full. The only people who knew about the computers in the math lab were people who used the math lab for its intended purpose, so we figured it was OK.
Allowing chat clients was way out of the scope of the lab, and given that the PC algebra coursework was supposed to be done individually, it was actually antithetical to the main purpose of those computers. Additionally, the lab had a strict policy against users installing software of any kind. I managed to get permission to install SETI@home clients on a few of them (it was a math lab, after all, and SETI is doing some pretty cool math). I couldn't get the clients to run right on those machines because they had crappy monitors that wouldn't do 800x600, and they couldn't handle it running as a background process, so it was a relatively short-lived experiment.
The fact that it wasn't installed by us was a big part of the problem. It was students who were installing it, and they wanted AIM. If we'd had aanther AIM-compatable client installed, they probably would have downloaded and installed AIM anyway. I never saw anybody using for potentially legitimate uses like you describe, but even if they were they still should have gone to an open lab and used one of those PCs rather than tying up one that somebody else needs to get their classwork done.
Also, this was in the AOL5.0 days. At that time every lab tech I knew had nightmares revolving around AOL software. It caused all kinds of problems. I don't recall there being a significant amount of alternative or compatible clients around at the time. Basically you had AIM, ICQ, or maybe IRC if you were a 1337 h4x0r, and they were pretty much discrete. (I don't mean any offense to IRC users, that's just the best description of the few people I knew that used it)
You can't get ISDN on a farm line. You also can't get most of the other extra services, like call waiting and such. We had to spend the 10 grand for the phone loop before we could even have a chance at getting fleeced for ISDN.
Having been responsible for a school computer lab, I say screw those users. They can use what I offer them or they can go somewhere else. I lost count of the number of times I had to re-image my relatively few machines because some idiot decided they absolutely had to have AIM (which hosed one of the math programs we used, which was the actual purpose of the lab).
What are open school labs for? Internet chat? No. Games? No. The purpose of open labs is to provide computers for people who can't afford their own so they can get their work done. That means word processing, spreadsheets, maybe some web browsing. All of those things can be done using Linux and various free packages. They need to edit or print out their MS Word document that they wrote at home? OpenOffice will do that just fine. The only problem I've ever had with it handling MS documents was some wrong background colors in an Excel spreadsheet, which is easily fixed.
As for the confusion, that's what lab assistants are for. "That icon is the web browser, that one is the word processor..." Quick and easy, and exactly the sort of brain dead stuff every lab assistant has to deal with all day, every day, regardless of Operating System.
For the few people who absolutely have to have Windows or Mac programs, have a few specialized labs set up for them. That's neither new nor different in a college environment, where just about every department has at least a small lab with some computers set up for the specific needs of the students taking those classes.
If a student wants to use a program not offered in the open lab, they can go find the department that would use that software and make an arrangement, or they can get their own damn computer.
to say they had no choice other than 28.8 is probably a bit of hyperbole...
I very much doubt that. I've lived in a rural area most of my life. Even though I was only about 8 miles from the CO, and on a fairly new all copper loop(1), with 56k capabilities on both ends of my connection, I was lucky to get more than 19.6k and never got more than 28.8k. PacBell is the high end for line quality around here, too, being the major carrier. There are a few parts of the county that are served by GTE, and they are much worse.
I'm guessing that you have never lived in a rural area. You wouldn't believe how bad phone service can be in areas where you can't open your window and spit on your neighbor. Universal Access is satisfied by only the most basic telephone capability on nasty, noisy lines, and the phone company only guarantees 4800 baud. My complaints about line quality were met with "you can get ISDN". I've since moved somewhere I can get DSL, but my mom still lives in the house I grew up in, and the situation hasn't changed a bit.
No, saying that they were limited to 28.8k is probably not an exageration, and is in fact probably a quite generous depiction of the service they were actually getting. It's quite possible ISDN isn't available to them, or if it is it's unreasonably expensive for the bandwidth it provides. If they're in a mountainous area there could easily be line-of-site issues that would prevent them from using one of the satalite based services. Line-of-site is also a problem for radio and microwave (despite what folks would like you to believe about cell phones, they do have LoS issues).
The MSNBC article says these questions are answered on the rric web site, but it seems to be barely limping along at this point.
(1) The new copper loop was paid for by 5 families (including mine) when our self-installed farm lines started getting sketchy about 7 or 8 years ago. It cost us $10k per family for 2 miles of line extension, plus a 3 year service contract with PacBell. PacBell made it a loop a few years later of their own volition.
I'm sure there were plenty of African Americans that didn't ask for Martin Luther King to advocate for them. That doesn't mean they didn't need it or benefit from it, just that they weren't conscious enough to recognize their need.
Linus made a kernel and decided to let other people use it and change it. His name is on it, so anything bad that it does reflects on him. If I were in his position, I would be very selective about what code gets attached to my reputation, too.
ICANN, on the other hand, is supposed have stewardship over a public resource, which they are coopting for personal gain.
If Linus suddenly decides to close the Linux kernel source and sell it under MS-style license, your comparison would be reasonable. Until that happens, you're effectively trying to say that apples are oranges.
I would say that Nader has a large enough constituency, and has proven himself capable of making enough noise, that his letters are not summarily round-filed.
Just a guess, but I don't think any government official is eager to be portrayed as being wasteful of taxpayers money. Particularly not Republicans, since that is the main way in which they differentiate themselves from the Democrats.
Let's see: the US government is supposed to be of the people, by the people, for the people. Nader is a Consumer Advocate, and since our society is extremely bent towards Capitalist ideals, that effectively makes him an advocate for the people (you knnow, the people whos money the government is spending). That he is asking the government to put some consideration into how they are spending MY money, in the hopes that the government's considerations on the matter will benefit ALL consumers of software products, I don't see how this is even slightly incongruous with Nader's stated mission.
And of course he's looking for publicity. It's very difficult to accomplish anyhting significant in this society without having publicity.
MICROSOFTS BUSINESS STRATEGY HAS BEEN DECLARED ILLEGAL IN A COURT OF LAW!!!!! Any remedy imposed by the court had damned well better force a change of those practices! Why is it so hard for people to get their heads around this very simple concept?
That's debatable. The earliest known version of the Old Testament is in Greek, and dates to 300CE. The earliest known version in Hebrew dates to around 900CE, and there is evidence that all older versions were destroyed systematically. It may be in the same language, but I'd say the evidence suggests that it isn't the same book.
Having been a Green Day fan since 1991, I have to say that Dookie was a definate departure in sound and feel from their earlier albums. I think that people turning their backs on the band had much less to do with the fact that they were making money than the fact that they just didn't sound like the old Green Day that they knew and loved. The same thing happened to Metallica with Load, Iron Maiden with Seventh Son of a Seventh Son, and Chumbawumba with Tubthumper. The band changed their sound, and the old fans didn't like it.
I do have to say, though, that I was irked that the Circus Tents sticker on his guitar was blurred out in the Longview video. The Circus Tents were from my town, and picked the other path of the "get famous or break up" debate.
I don't think Green Day sold out, I think they just grew up. It was unhappy coincidence for them that their sound change coincided with their release on a major label. As a musician, I know the change of sound was innevitable. You can't play the same thing over and over for your whole life (well, maybe if you're a Ramone you can, but I think they've spent a little to much time sedated). I'm certainly playing a lot more Jazz and Classical and a lot less Punk and Metal than I was 10 years ago. It happens to everybody.
Where has anyone acually involved in the UnitedLinux project actually said that there will be a per-seat license?!? All I've seen is a somewhat vague statement in the UnitedLinux FAQ which could be interpreted as allowing for the possibility that there might be a few UnitedLinux distros using a somewhat non-standard license. Somebody mentioned it on/. wondering what they meant by it, and the Chicken Littles around here latched on to it a cried that the sky is falling. RMS heard the screams and, without bothering to check if the sky was actually comming down, issued forth his opinion on the matter. Apparantly the/. editors haven't bothered to look up either, since they keep posting stories about this totally unsubstantiated rumor!
The fact that not a single one of these stories or opinions has been able to find a quote which substantiates this rumor is quite telling.
Sure, Ransom Love is an idiot, but come on people! He already got smacked down for per-seat licensing once, is he really dumb enough to try it again? Are the rest of UnitedLinux dumb enough to go along with such a stupid idea after seeing what happened to Caldera? I very much doubt that. Obviously SuSE isn't, and I'd be very surprised if Connectiva or TurboLinux where even giving the idea consideration.
I remember vaguely that there were 2 versions of creation, but as I said, it's been a while. I don't remember man being first though. I guess it's time to read it again.
As far as I can tell, there's a big loophole in Genesis that allows for Evolution. Essentially, the loophole can be summed up in the question "how long is a day?" The loophole was pointed out in the New Testament by John (IIRC), who said "to God a day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years is but a day". To anyone who insists that the 7 days of creation were 24 hours, I say "who are you to tell God how long a day is?"
I'm a Buddhist, so these questions are much easier for me, but I was raised Christian and still believe in a higher power, so I've put some thought into them. It's been a while since I've read the Bible, but I recall that there was enough ambiguity and strangeness in Genesis to allow room for things like Evolution if the reader was willing to put some though into it, as opposed to simply accepting the dogma handed to them at face value.
Because it's against Jewish law to speak the name of God. In this context it's probably questionable whether the law applies, since this could be considered written, and it doesn't seem like the prohibition applies to written works. Also, God could be considered a generic term, as opposed to IHVH (however you choose to pronounce it), which is quite specific and definately prohibited (and thus the "Jehovah" scene in Monty Python's "Life of Brian"). But, better safe than sorry.
I am not a Jew, though, so if I'm mistaken in anything I've said here, I'd appreciate a correction.
IBM offers SuSE on their servers, which, according to people who have actually read the article, is exactly what the Germans are buying. Red Hat is the default Linux for IBM servers, but several other options are available. It's quite likely, actually, that SuSE will have a share of the support contract, and so will benefit quite a bit from this, if not as visibly as IBM will.
I pick on Adobe every chance I get. Those guys are assholes. They actually put out high quality products, though, so there just aren't the opportunities for ridicule that there are with MS.
I agree that Closed Source has it's place, especially in CAD and games.
CAD because there really isn't enough interest in building good CAD tools for it to be viable as a Open Source project. I've heard good things about qcad, but I haven't used it yet. People like me who have used 3d CAD tools like SolidWorks find 2d tools quite painful to use. I might try qcad for simple circuit design, or maybe floor plans, but that's about it.
Games because it's expensive and difficult to develope cutting edge stuff like we are all used to playing. If it weren't for the money involved, we'd all be playing Doom2 right now instead of RtCW.
OS, office apps, dev environments; these are things that get used by a lot of people, and so Open Source make sense. There is enough interest that the small percentage of people who are willing and able to contribute have enough numbers to make a project viable.
When was the last time you actually used Linux? From the apparent ignorance of the current state of Linux you display in your post, I'm guessing you installed Red Hat for a week 5 years ago.
All the modern distros have extremely easy to use update tools that beat the pants off anything I've seen from Microsoft. SuSE's YOU (YaST Online Update) is a prime example. It handles everything installed with SuSE, and is about as difficult as checking email. No mailing list involved.
Easy to use GUI? Take your pick. I like KDE, personally, but there are plenty more that fit the bill. KDE is at least as easy to use as Explorer.
In contrast, Windows has what? An update website that I have to somehow know about (since they don't seem particularly eager to publicize it) and check manually, unless I want to open myself up to script viruses, and which doesn't cover most of my apps (except MS Office, of course, which has its own update site). A GUI with all the Admin tools intentionally obfuscated. An obtuse and often self-contradictory security model, the tools for which are also intentionally obfuscated. A kernel which requires regular reboots to function properly.
If what people want is an easy to use GUI and rock solid security without mailing lists on an OS that just works, why the hell do they keep using Windows?
For the record, I know the answer to that question. Do you?
A DirectX game would not be faster, but and OpenGL game could be (reduced overhead and all that). It doesn't seem like OpenGL is being used much these days, which is to bad. I understand why, though.
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They bought D&D and made it a functional system. That makes them pretty cool in my book. I never had a problem with WoTC, though, aside from thinking some of their rules revisions for Magic were kind of stupid.
The problem is not that porn is wrong or a crime, but that it is a liability. Sexual harassment laws are extremely vague, and there are any number of seemingly harmless situations that could get the school sued. Basically, anything that could be slightly offensive to anybody in a vaguely sexual way can fall under these rules. Schools protect themselves from these extremely expensive lawsuits through their AUP, and it is vital that the lab staff enforce those policies. It's far better that peoples surfing be limited "voluntarily" through such a policy than that internet access be censored, or even cut off.
I agree with your sense that there's nothing wrong with pornography, but there are far to many people in the world who are way too uptight and will do anything in their power to prevent people from doing what makes them happy. That includes suing schools into oblivion with sexual harrasment/hostile environment lawsuits.
It's an ethics violation in the sense that, no matter what precautions you might take, it's still a public place, and your actions are exposing someone else to liability. It is certainly within that someone else's rights to defend themselves from that liability, even preemptively, which is what those AUPs are all about.
First of all, I was a tutor, not an admin. I was given some admin duties because I had some knowledge in that area, but I did not create or implement security.
Second, these were Windows 95 boxen. The software that these computers were intended for didn't run on NT, and since this was 3 years ago, there weren't any other options, not that we had the budget to upgrade the OS even if one were available which ran our software and had any kind of security at all. The security model was an AUP posted on the wall above each computer which was enforced by tutors such as myself. The AUP was quite specific regarding user-installed software.
Third, this was a math lab, not an open lab. All the software needed to perform the intended function of those machines was provided already. It was the students who insisted on installing this crap that had no respect for the usability of the machines, since the software they installed, particularly AIM, often hosed up software people needed to do the work for which these machines were intended, which included a PC-based algebra class. I was concerned with usability for people who needed those sytems to do their classwork, not usability for some idiot chatting on AIM.
Fourth, there were open labs within a 10 minute walking distance of mine, though they they had similar AUPs. Anyone who doesn't understand why an AUP would include a clause against user-installed software, which apparently includes you, doesn't know enough about networked environments to be making judgements about the abilities of others. Since you are obviously ignorant, let me enlighten you to the basic facts relevant to our current discussion: User-installed software is responsible for the vast majority of problems, especially in an environment such as a school computer lab. Computers in those environments are there for a reason, and that reason generally does not include chat, games, pornography, etc, and if any of those activities interfere with the the intended purpose of those computers it is the duty of the staff to remedy the problem, which we did by kicking the user out and reimaging the drive.
Finally, for the record, the last time I checked my IQ was in the 150 range. Your prose style suggests that you are well below that mark. Perhaps, in keeping with your world view, you should consider irradiating yourself? You know, leadership by example and all that...
Those students are not there for your convenience, you are there to educate them and provide help and instruction.
Those computers were not there for the student's convenience. It was not an open lab, it was a math lab. Those computers had specific purposes. If people wanted to do stuff like chat, there were open labs within a 10 minute walk where they could do all the chatting they wanted.
The relatively few students who were installing their own software were inconveniencing the students who needed to use those computers for their intended purpose. My job was to help them do that work (which I was very good at) and to enforce the AUP, which included a NO USER-INSTALLED SOFTWARE clause.
Even in an open lab, though I would still have the same policy against user-installed software. In an academic environment, unauthorized software causes about 80% of the problems admins have to deal with. That's why utilities such as ghost exist.
The lab I was working on was not really an open lab, it actually wasn't even primarily a computer lab, but we had some. It was a math lab, and the purpose of the computers was to run some educational programs; in particular we were experimenting with PC-based algebra classes.
We lab personel often allowed people to use the computers for other purposes such as writing papers and such, mostly because the school was actually a little short on open lab computers, and it wasn't uncommon for those labs to be full. The only people who knew about the computers in the math lab were people who used the math lab for its intended purpose, so we figured it was OK.
Allowing chat clients was way out of the scope of the lab, and given that the PC algebra coursework was supposed to be done individually, it was actually antithetical to the main purpose of those computers. Additionally, the lab had a strict policy against users installing software of any kind. I managed to get permission to install SETI@home clients on a few of them (it was a math lab, after all, and SETI is doing some pretty cool math). I couldn't get the clients to run right on those machines because they had crappy monitors that wouldn't do 800x600, and they couldn't handle it running as a background process, so it was a relatively short-lived experiment.
The fact that it wasn't installed by us was a big part of the problem. It was students who were installing it, and they wanted AIM. If we'd had aanther AIM-compatable client installed, they probably would have downloaded and installed AIM anyway. I never saw anybody using for potentially legitimate uses like you describe, but even if they were they still should have gone to an open lab and used one of those PCs rather than tying up one that somebody else needs to get their classwork done.
Also, this was in the AOL5.0 days. At that time every lab tech I knew had nightmares revolving around AOL software. It caused all kinds of problems. I don't recall there being a significant amount of alternative or compatible clients around at the time. Basically you had AIM, ICQ, or maybe IRC if you were a 1337 h4x0r, and they were pretty much discrete. (I don't mean any offense to IRC users, that's just the best description of the few people I knew that used it)
You can't get ISDN on a farm line. You also can't get most of the other extra services, like call waiting and such. We had to spend the 10 grand for the phone loop before we could even have a chance at getting fleeced for ISDN.
Having been responsible for a school computer lab, I say screw those users. They can use what I offer them or they can go somewhere else. I lost count of the number of times I had to re-image my relatively few machines because some idiot decided they absolutely had to have AIM (which hosed one of the math programs we used, which was the actual purpose of the lab).
What are open school labs for? Internet chat? No. Games? No. The purpose of open labs is to provide computers for people who can't afford their own so they can get their work done. That means word processing, spreadsheets, maybe some web browsing. All of those things can be done using Linux and various free packages. They need to edit or print out their MS Word document that they wrote at home? OpenOffice will do that just fine. The only problem I've ever had with it handling MS documents was some wrong background colors in an Excel spreadsheet, which is easily fixed.
As for the confusion, that's what lab assistants are for. "That icon is the web browser, that one is the word processor..." Quick and easy, and exactly the sort of brain dead stuff every lab assistant has to deal with all day, every day, regardless of Operating System.
For the few people who absolutely have to have Windows or Mac programs, have a few specialized labs set up for them. That's neither new nor different in a college environment, where just about every department has at least a small lab with some computers set up for the specific needs of the students taking those classes.
If a student wants to use a program not offered in the open lab, they can go find the department that would use that software and make an arrangement, or they can get their own damn computer.
to say they had no choice other than 28.8 is probably a bit of hyperbole...
I very much doubt that. I've lived in a rural area most of my life. Even though I was only about 8 miles from the CO, and on a fairly new all copper loop(1), with 56k capabilities on both ends of my connection, I was lucky to get more than 19.6k and never got more than 28.8k. PacBell is the high end for line quality around here, too, being the major carrier. There are a few parts of the county that are served by GTE, and they are much worse.
I'm guessing that you have never lived in a rural area. You wouldn't believe how bad phone service can be in areas where you can't open your window and spit on your neighbor. Universal Access is satisfied by only the most basic telephone capability on nasty, noisy lines, and the phone company only guarantees 4800 baud. My complaints about line quality were met with "you can get ISDN". I've since moved somewhere I can get DSL, but my mom still lives in the house I grew up in, and the situation hasn't changed a bit.
No, saying that they were limited to 28.8k is probably not an exageration, and is in fact probably a quite generous depiction of the service they were actually getting. It's quite possible ISDN isn't available to them, or if it is it's unreasonably expensive for the bandwidth it provides. If they're in a mountainous area there could easily be line-of-site issues that would prevent them from using one of the satalite based services. Line-of-site is also a problem for radio and microwave (despite what folks would like you to believe about cell phones, they do have LoS issues).
The MSNBC article says these questions are answered on the rric web site, but it seems to be barely limping along at this point.
(1) The new copper loop was paid for by 5 families (including mine) when our self-installed farm lines started getting sketchy about 7 or 8 years ago. It cost us $10k per family for 2 miles of line extension, plus a 3 year service contract with PacBell. PacBell made it a loop a few years later of their own volition.
I suppose you could
Seems kinda self-condradictory though
OK, but what's degree of seperation between Vegemite and Kevin Bacon?
I'm sure there were plenty of African Americans that didn't ask for Martin Luther King to advocate for them. That doesn't mean they didn't need it or benefit from it, just that they weren't conscious enough to recognize their need.
Linus made a kernel and decided to let other people use it and change it. His name is on it, so anything bad that it does reflects on him. If I were in his position, I would be very selective about what code gets attached to my reputation, too.
ICANN, on the other hand, is supposed have stewardship over a public resource, which they are coopting for personal gain.
If Linus suddenly decides to close the Linux kernel source and sell it under MS-style license, your comparison would be reasonable. Until that happens, you're effectively trying to say that apples are oranges.
I would say that Nader has a large enough constituency, and has proven himself capable of making enough noise, that his letters are not summarily round-filed.
Just a guess, but I don't think any government official is eager to be portrayed as being wasteful of taxpayers money. Particularly not Republicans, since that is the main way in which they differentiate themselves from the Democrats.
Let's see: the US government is supposed to be of the people, by the people, for the people. Nader is a Consumer Advocate, and since our society is extremely bent towards Capitalist ideals, that effectively makes him an advocate for the people (you knnow, the people whos money the government is spending). That he is asking the government to put some consideration into how they are spending MY money, in the hopes that the government's considerations on the matter will benefit ALL consumers of software products, I don't see how this is even slightly incongruous with Nader's stated mission.
And of course he's looking for publicity. It's very difficult to accomplish anyhting significant in this society without having publicity.
MICROSOFTS BUSINESS STRATEGY HAS BEEN DECLARED ILLEGAL IN A COURT OF LAW!!!!! Any remedy imposed by the court had damned well better force a change of those practices! Why is it so hard for people to get their heads around this very simple concept?
That's debatable. The earliest known version of the Old Testament is in Greek, and dates to 300CE. The earliest known version in Hebrew dates to around 900CE, and there is evidence that all older versions were destroyed systematically. It may be in the same language, but I'd say the evidence suggests that it isn't the same book.
Having been a Green Day fan since 1991, I have to say that Dookie was a definate departure in sound and feel from their earlier albums. I think that people turning their backs on the band had much less to do with the fact that they were making money than the fact that they just didn't sound like the old Green Day that they knew and loved. The same thing happened to Metallica with Load, Iron Maiden with Seventh Son of a Seventh Son, and Chumbawumba with Tubthumper. The band changed their sound, and the old fans didn't like it.
I do have to say, though, that I was irked that the Circus Tents sticker on his guitar was blurred out in the Longview video. The Circus Tents were from my town, and picked the other path of the "get famous or break up" debate.
I don't think Green Day sold out, I think they just grew up. It was unhappy coincidence for them that their sound change coincided with their release on a major label. As a musician, I know the change of sound was innevitable. You can't play the same thing over and over for your whole life (well, maybe if you're a Ramone you can, but I think they've spent a little to much time sedated). I'm certainly playing a lot more Jazz and Classical and a lot less Punk and Metal than I was 10 years ago. It happens to everybody.
Where has anyone acually involved in the UnitedLinux project actually said that there will be a per-seat license?!? All I've seen is a somewhat vague statement in the UnitedLinux FAQ which could be interpreted as allowing for the possibility that there might be a few UnitedLinux distros using a somewhat non-standard license. Somebody mentioned it on /. wondering what they meant by it, and the Chicken Littles around here latched on to it a cried that the sky is falling. RMS heard the screams and, without bothering to check if the sky was actually comming down, issued forth his opinion on the matter. Apparantly the /. editors haven't bothered to look up either, since they keep posting stories about this totally unsubstantiated rumor!
The fact that not a single one of these stories or opinions has been able to find a quote which substantiates this rumor is quite telling.
Sure, Ransom Love is an idiot, but come on people! He already got smacked down for per-seat licensing once, is he really dumb enough to try it again? Are the rest of UnitedLinux dumb enough to go along with such a stupid idea after seeing what happened to Caldera? I very much doubt that. Obviously SuSE isn't, and I'd be very surprised if Connectiva or TurboLinux where even giving the idea consideration.
I remember vaguely that there were 2 versions of creation, but as I said, it's been a while. I don't remember man being first though. I guess it's time to read it again.
As far as I can tell, there's a big loophole in Genesis that allows for Evolution. Essentially, the loophole can be summed up in the question "how long is a day?" The loophole was pointed out in the New Testament by John (IIRC), who said "to God a day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years is but a day". To anyone who insists that the 7 days of creation were 24 hours, I say "who are you to tell God how long a day is?"
I'm a Buddhist, so these questions are much easier for me, but I was raised Christian and still believe in a higher power, so I've put some thought into them. It's been a while since I've read the Bible, but I recall that there was enough ambiguity and strangeness in Genesis to allow room for things like Evolution if the reader was willing to put some though into it, as opposed to simply accepting the dogma handed to them at face value.
Because it's against Jewish law to speak the name of God. In this context it's probably questionable whether the law applies, since this could be considered written, and it doesn't seem like the prohibition applies to written works. Also, God could be considered a generic term, as opposed to IHVH (however you choose to pronounce it), which is quite specific and definately prohibited (and thus the "Jehovah" scene in Monty Python's "Life of Brian"). But, better safe than sorry.
I am not a Jew, though, so if I'm mistaken in anything I've said here, I'd appreciate a correction.
IBM offers SuSE on their servers, which, according to people who have actually read the article, is exactly what the Germans are buying. Red Hat is the default Linux for IBM servers, but several other options are available. It's quite likely, actually, that SuSE will have a share of the support contract, and so will benefit quite a bit from this, if not as visibly as IBM will.
I pick on Adobe every chance I get. Those guys are assholes. They actually put out high quality products, though, so there just aren't the opportunities for ridicule that there are with MS.
I agree that Closed Source has it's place, especially in CAD and games.
CAD because there really isn't enough interest in building good CAD tools for it to be viable as a Open Source project. I've heard good things about qcad, but I haven't used it yet. People like me who have used 3d CAD tools like SolidWorks find 2d tools quite painful to use. I might try qcad for simple circuit design, or maybe floor plans, but that's about it.
Games because it's expensive and difficult to develope cutting edge stuff like we are all used to playing. If it weren't for the money involved, we'd all be playing Doom2 right now instead of RtCW.
OS, office apps, dev environments; these are things that get used by a lot of people, and so Open Source make sense. There is enough interest that the small percentage of people who are willing and able to contribute have enough numbers to make a project viable.
When was the last time you actually used Linux? From the apparent ignorance of the current state of Linux you display in your post, I'm guessing you installed Red Hat for a week 5 years ago.
All the modern distros have extremely easy to use update tools that beat the pants off anything I've seen from Microsoft. SuSE's YOU (YaST Online Update) is a prime example. It handles everything installed with SuSE, and is about as difficult as checking email. No mailing list involved.
Easy to use GUI? Take your pick. I like KDE, personally, but there are plenty more that fit the bill. KDE is at least as easy to use as Explorer.
In contrast, Windows has what? An update website that I have to somehow know about (since they don't seem particularly eager to publicize it) and check manually, unless I want to open myself up to script viruses, and which doesn't cover most of my apps (except MS Office, of course, which has its own update site). A GUI with all the Admin tools intentionally obfuscated. An obtuse and often self-contradictory security model, the tools for which are also intentionally obfuscated. A kernel which requires regular reboots to function properly.
If what people want is an easy to use GUI and rock solid security without mailing lists on an OS that just works, why the hell do they keep using Windows?
For the record, I know the answer to that question. Do you?
A DirectX game would not be faster, but and OpenGL game could be (reduced overhead and all that). It doesn't seem like OpenGL is being used much these days, which is to bad. I understand why, though.