The SOLUTION is to make the design usable in the first place. This is often overlooked when people look at why Windows in the lead.
Huh? Windows was in the lead with Windows 3.0. Do you think that was usable? Microsoft was in the lead with MS-DOS! How freaking unusable was that!
Windows XP might finally have gotten a little bit usable but that's a first for Windows. Usability is heavily overrated. Microsoft won the market without decent usability. There are OTHER FACTORS involved here. I think price is the big one. Applications comes a close second. Usability is right down the bottom of the list alongside the box colour and the startup noise.
First, consider that this script affords this so-called "increased market" you speak of no possibility of actually purchasing this music. Rather, it simply allows anyone to leech Apple's bandwidth by downloading 30-second samples, database info, and album art--and all this with no potential for increased sales because users of this script will have no way to purchase songs!
I'm in Australia. I can't buy music from iTunes even if I wanted to. But they still installed iTunes on my new PowerBook (which quickly got formatted to install Linux, but that's irrelevant). So why did they enable the iTunes Store feature on my laptop? It seems they're not increasing the market by letting me and other Australians browse the iTunes Store?
Is Apple Australia trying to increase piracy through P2P? Is Apple Australia trying to undermine the iTunes Store by letting people use iTMS bandwidth even though we can't buy the music? Or perhaps Apple Australia knows something that you don't. I'm going with that theory.
1. use P2P to infringe copyright on the tracks that interest them,
2. go buy the CD, or
3. use one of the 10,000 WMA music stores to download the track.*
4. Have one of their friends with an iTunes client buy the music for them.
5. Become so impressed with the selection that you buy a Mac/WinPC just to run iTunes (hey, it might happen).
Use your imagination.
What the script author and most of the Slashdot audience is advocating is that Apple should:
* provide unlimited use of the store's resources to persons who cannot and will not ever make a purchase from it
* facilitate one or more of the following activities:
o copyright infringement over P2P networks
o further domination of the Windows Media format and non-Apple music players
Attacked? It's an alternate frontend, not a decryption device.... All that has changed is that the potential number of users has been increased because you no longer need to use MacOS or Windows to run the official iTunes client.
This is totally false. Sorry. This software downloads Apple's (relatively) high bitrate 30 second previews. It DOES NOT FACILITATE PURCHASE OR DOWNLOAD OF AUTHORIZED PURCHASES.
Nice attempt at putting words into my mouth. Let's put back the words you removed with those ellipses.
Attacked? It's an alternate frontend, not a decryption device. You still get the same content from Apple, using the same protocol. It's only the previews, not the songs. All that has changed is that the potential number of users has been increased because you no longer need to use MacOS or Windows to run the official iTunes client.
Notice how I didn't say it "FACILITATE[D] PURCHASE OR DOWNLOAD OF AUTHORIZED PURCHASES". I even highlighted the bit where I said it only downloaded previews because you must have missed that the first time before "correcting" me.
So - in case you didn't absorb anything from the article
Oh the irony, because if you'd actually made an effort to read my comment you wouldn't have felt the need to "correct" me.
BTW, I'm in Australia so I can't purchase songs from iTunes anyway.
Thus if the majority of people in saudi arabia feel a web site contravenes prevailing standards, then yes, the government would be right in 'banning' it.
No, because that would be an example of the majority imposing their will on the minority. In other words, mob rule. The government should take steps to prevent the tyranny of the majority.
Protection, therefore, against the tyranny of the magistrate is not enough; there needs protection also against the tyranny of the prevailing opinion and feeling, against the tendency of society to impose, by other means than civil penalties, its own ideas and practices as rules of conduct on those who dissent from them; to fetter the development and, if possible, prevent the formation of any individuality not in harmony with its ways, and compel all characters to fashion themselves upon the model of its own. -- John Mills
The difference between our pets is that I let my dog out. I make sure the dog is aware of the danger of the traffic on the street and I've taken care to make sure she understands the dynamics of her world.
Gah, I despise people that let their dogs roam free. Roaming dogs defecate on pavements and in other people's gardens. They terrorise small children (even if the dog is friendly, children can be scared witless by a roaming dog). They pose a hazard to passing cars (the driver doesn't know if your dog is going to run in front of the car or not). They chase and kill natural wildlife such as lizards and small marsupials. They find other dogs and engage in 3-hour long barking sessions that piss everybody off.
Lock your freaking dog up when you're not around. Do not let it roam.
It's this zero-tolerance attitude that will cement hardware DRM's inevitability. Apple tried to meet customers halfway and they still get attacked.
Attacked? It's an alternate frontend, not a decryption device. You still get the same content from Apple, using the same protocol. It's only the previews, not the songs. All that has changed is that the potential number of users has been increased because you no longer need to use MacOS or Windows to run the official iTunes client.
How in betsy's name is that an attack? This is free publicity for iTunes Music Store on more platforms than Apple can officially support. This guy is basically increasing the market for Apple. Would you claim it was an attack on car sales if people starting P2Ping the TV commercials? I bet the advertising execs for the car company would love it. Think Honda.
First, I think there are sufficiently talented and experienced people to implement perhaps 5% of technology projects being built today. There is simply such a high demand and such a low supply of IT professionals that the market is completely off kilter. That's why salaries are so high and the average skill level is so low. The worst part about the high salaries is that they attracted terribly unskilled people who don't care about IT but only care about the money.
Second, the IT field is so freaking complex it defies imagination. There is simply too much to know. So you have these specialists who know only their narrow field, but inevitably those fields go out of fashion and the former specialist joins another field they have no experience in. It's a vicious cycle caused by (I think) the fact that IT isn't truly a mature industry. It's a research field that has been adopted too early by other industries. So there's lots of change which leads to regular retraining and inexperienced workers.
Since the dawn of time, ctrl+C has been copy in each and every app. ctrl+x has been cut. ctrl+v has been paste.
The original Windows used Shift+Delete and Shift-Insert (I think) for cut/paste. It wasn't until Windows 95 that they "standardised" on the Ctrl-C/V/X combos that Mac had been using for years[1]. I wrote "standardised" in quotes because I was finding Windows applications in 2001 that still didn't use those standard keys.
[1] Whether Apple invented those combos or got them from somewhere else, I don't know.
That brings up a good question...how safe IS Linux from spyware?
Granted more spyware is written for the Win32 systems, but with the increase usage of Linux and the way tracking cookies work...I wonder if there has really been an in depth look at if and how spyware can infect a system running Linux.
I'm certain that Linux isn't 100% safe, but I reckon it's a lot safer than Windows for the following reasons.
Linux systems are a harder target to write for. Too many variations, distributions, desktop environments, architectures, etc.
Linux is naturally transparent so it's easier to tell when something suspicious is running. It's harder for a Windows user - even an interested, intelligent and informed user - to figure out what's spyware and what's normal.
Free software developers take it as a personal insult when their software is used for breaches. Do you think Microsoft cares? Perhaps individual coders care but they don't get to dictate "where they want to work today". They have to do what they're told to do by management and for the most part Microsoft seems content to allow third parties to create and sell AdAware type programs. If Evolution allows trojans to be installed, or Mozilla allows spyware to install itself, you can bet your boots that a developer somewhere will dedicate themselves to fixing the problem rather than relying on bandaids like AdAware.
The open-source nature of Linux means anybody can find and fix the cause of breaches. We're not dependent on the original author deciding it's worth their time and effort. This greatly increases the likelihood that mistakes will be found and fixed promptly.
There are other reasons that will only hold true until Linux becomes more popular. So these are good reasons for now, but won't hold true forever.
Linux users are on-average more informed about their systems.
Linux has a higher percentage of developer-users vs pure-users. In other words, the people best suited to detecting and removing spyware.
Linux has a smaller market share so there's less interest from malicious spyware developers.
Linux applications so far seem to be designed better, ie with paranoia. For example, Evolution won't run executable attachments. This minimises the opportunities for spyware to be installed. I do expect this to take a turn for the worse as Linux becomes more popular and the quality of the average developer decreases. Imagine the near future when all the former VB programmers start flooding Linux with Mono programs... [shudder].
Greater percentage of Linux software is open source (or free software). I'm dreading the day when Linux starts to get an increased availability of proprietary non-free no-source software. I foresee the same problems occuring for Linux as we currently see on Windows, when that happens. The typical spyware intrusion is when a user downloads an anonymous "cool" utility which happens to be a carrier.
Of course I would if I was running apache, php or zope. I would not if I was running any of the JVMs you mentioned though.
So the real complaint isn't that the Linux distros don't include JVMs (which is what jmorris originally claimed and why I pointed out three free JVMs included with Linux distros) but that jmorris and yourself have found the free JVMs to be of inferior quality. That has nothing to do with being "certified for production use" as you later asked.
My point about Linux was that at one time not long ago there would've been UNIX administrators saying similar things about Linux. "Would you trust your data to Linux, it's not even certified POSIX". As you use Linux you probably agree that quality has very little to do with certification. Thus my point that certification only gets you so far. Beyond that point you need to know the product; a certified heap of shit is still a heap of shit, and an uncertified gem is still a gem.
Plus with Sun you get policies that are just insane. No other word really describes the behaviour. Example: It is obviously in Sun's interest to see a JVM on as many machines as possible. Their JVM is a free download.
Sun's JVM is a free download.
But you can't even redistribute unmodified copies of it,
That might be true for Sun's JVM.
which is why no linux distro includes a JVM. To use Java under Linux requires a user to go search it out, download a non-trivial package and install it.
You're simply wrong.
$ apt-cache search jvm
kaffe - A JVM to run Java bytecode
sablevm - Free implementation of Java Virtual Machine (JVM)
orp - Java VM and JIT from Intel Research Lab
There are several free JVMs on Linux and they are trivial to install (apt-get install).
One thread I've noticed emerging in the comments here is that of "but non open source stuff has the same problems". Why should it matter if the non open source stuff has the same problems? If it's a problem at all, should it not be addressed?
Because if OSS has the same problem as non-OSS then it's not a fundamental problem with OSS development. It's a fundamental problem with all software development.
Though a bigger flaw in his arugment is if some OSS projects do not have the problems he lists, then they can't be fundamental problems with OSS development. It's not fundamental if sometimes it's there and sometimes it's not. Fundamental means the principle, the element, the core, the foundation, the very inescapable essence of the object. He's saying these are fundamental problems with OSS. Pointing to a single OSS project without those problems is the counterproof. I point to Firefox, because he seems to like Firefox.
Apple never "fixes" security holes. They only "improve handling" or something like this. Yet everyone pees their pants about MacOS X.
Yeah, kind of like how companies always call them "issues" and "incidents" rather than "bugs" and "major fuckup". It's marketting spin.
Btw, I don't pee my pants over MacOS X. I think there's too much hype in that particular arena. It's FreeBSD/Mach and the NEXTSTEP GUI with some whizzy 3D effects. You'd think Apple had invented the Holy Grail the way some people rabbit on about it, though. I wonder where all these cheerleaders were when MacOS 6 had a good GUI on a crappy foundation. Probably using DOS and writing CONFIG.SYS files for their ISA sound card. Obviously the GUI and autoconfig wasn't that important.
I think she missed the biggest reason of all here: Designing a good GUI is very hard. Wait -- let me further clarify that: it's very, very hard.
No, it's not "very very hard". It just needs a different skillset to what you possess.
People always like to pretend that their profession is "very very hard" and that mere mortals can't attain their prowess. They often point to "inate ability" and "natural talent". It is a crock. You can learn good UI design skills, just like you learnt to code.
Stop mystifying UI design. I agree that the current OSS UIs can be improved, but we don't need to hire high-priests to solve the problem. We just need people willing to experiment and learn and get better at it.
It will require a single, strong voice. And that voice has to have a world of talent behind it. That's a mighty tall order for hundreds of grass-roots volunteer efforts to come up with.
I don't believe that at all. There isn't a single strong voice within Apple. Reading the stories on folklore.org, there was plenty of dispute over ways to do things. The final Mac took the best ideas from many people. So you don't need a single strong voice. You need a consensus.
One last point...
A good UI designer will also run user acceptance labs to test their designs.
When OSS was getting started the detractors said "OSS is low quality because you need formal testing engineers and analysis labs to produce quality software". Well, look around, you've got how many million users who enjoy living on the bleeding edge? You've got the biggest acceptance labs ever imaginable. Release early. Release often. It works for code, so it will work for UI design as well. Nothing is better than feedback from somebody who uses the application in real life as opposed to an artificial environment.
Why am I calling it flamebait? Because of the 5 problems he describes, not a single one was unique to open source software development.
User interface design. I've seen some truly horrendous user interfaces coming out of non-OSS companies. He points to MacOS X as a shining beacon of "UI done right" and I have to agree. But that's Apple. They're very good at it. Not all companies are as good as Apple. Not even all MacOS application developers are that good!
Documentation. He slams OSS as providing a mixed bag of documentation. Non-OSS is exactly the same! I've worked on non-OSS which is poorly documented, and I've worked on non-OSS which is brilliantly documented. In fact the OSS UNIX-like docos blows away the majority of non-OSS UNIX competition. That's one reason why almost all the non-OSS UNIX companies are kaput; their offerings were considerably worse than Linux!
Feature-centric development. Has he forgotten that the bloated-does-everything application was the hallmark of non-OSS development for years? He rightly accuses some OSS developers of repeating the same mistake, but this is a bad design habit being carried over from the largely non-OSS PC OS and PC apps market. It has nothing to do with OSS specifically.
Programming for the self. This one really takes the cake for nonsense. Has this guy ever worked with Cadence? Or Oracle? Or Paradigm? Those apps are extremely difficult to ramp up with so they have the exact same issues that he describes for OSS. What does this specifically have to do with OSS? Once again, absolutely nothing.
Religious blindness. Lest we forget, the term "zealot" was first used to describe Mac users and later Amiga users. I realise I've just invoked Godwin's corollary (the person who first says "zealot" loses the argument) but the shoe fits. All platforms have their religious nutcases. Once again, not OSS specific.
It was a flamebait article designed to invoke angry responses. The 5 problems he listed were not fundamental problems with OSS. If they were, then all OSS projects would exhibit those 5 problems. The fact that some OSS projects don't have those 5 problems is proof that they're not fundamental to OSS development. The fact that some non-OSS projects do have those 5 problems is proof that they're issues with all software development, not just OSS.
What he has described are 5 pitfalls that all projects, OSS and non-OSS, sometimes fall into. If he had rewritten the paper as "A number of pitfalls that OSS projects would do well to avoid" then he would have had a winner. If had even written it as "some OSS projects have these undesirable qualities" then that would be OK. However written in the sweeping over-generalised sense, that those 5 problems are fundamental to OSS and therefore inescapable, it's inciteful nonsense.
Just in case it wasn't clear, I appreciate that Cray supercomputers are massively parallel but have shared memory and very fast interconnects, as opposed to a textbook cluster which has no shared memory and relatively slow interconnects. The ponderance about non-parallel vs parallel wasn't meant to reflect on Cray vs clusters. I was interested in the "embarassingly parallel" comment from the previous person.
The Top500 list uses Linpack exclusively for it's test. Linpack can be split to run on clusters VERY easily, it could even fall under the catagory of "embarassingly parallel" problems. These sorts of tasks do exist in reality, but they definitely aren't the only kinds of problems you'll encounter.
In my very minimal and purely educational experience with HPC programming, one of the goals is to redesign the algorithm until it can be executed in the most parallel form. The problems I was working with were initially not very well parallelised so it would run like a slug on the 512 CPU supercomputer (not a cluster in the sense described above). After some maths manipulation you could get half-decent performance out of the same kit.
Which leads to my pondering thought, I wonder if all non-parallel algorithms can be rewritten in a parallel form? For example, I've personally worked the proof that all recursive algorithms can be written as iterative algorithms (and vice versa) as part of my coursework. I've got a gut feeling that the same "equivalence" won't hold for parallel vs serial algorithms, but I'd like to know if it has been formally (dis)proven.
It's not good that they're having so many publicly visible flaws, but I'm really impressed that Microsoft is starting to be honest and forthcoming in their reporting. I remember a time when the bugs wouldn't get announced until the exploit was already wreaking havoc. Now it seems the bugs get reported and patched before there are any exploits. That's very professional; they can't be perfect but they can be responsible.
It's called "capacity planning". If you're buying a bigger machine than your capacity calls for, then of course you're spending extra money. OTOH, if you can put your web server, email server, domain server. file server, etc. all in the same box, then you're saving money over the proliferating x86 boxes.
And that's called "putting all your eggs in one basket".
Your comments earlier about "RPM hell" aren't wrong, but they're not right either. You can get package dependency hell on Solaris, too. You can also get patch-hell. Ever had a patch break your Jumpstart server? Or a SYSV package refuse to install because you don't have a dependency so you have to manually discover and install the dependencies? RPM at least automates that process for you.
Your comments about flaky RedHat are I think biassed. I've seen Solaris do silly things too. For example, the dtlogin process would segfault on Solaris 9 if the hostname of your terminal wasn't in DNS (or it was something like that, I'm going from memory, it had something to do with NIS+ entries for the server as well, I'd have to go to my notes to find the exact problem and solution). It wasn't easy to debug that problem either.
I don't disagree with you about the pricing issues though. Sun gear is actually quite cheap. People compare a 280R to a P4 whitebox and think Sun gear is overpriced. They never compare a 280R against an equivalent system from IBM or Dell. I think the Sun gear is good value for money. It is a no-brainer if you consider the vertical upgrade path for Sun gear; there is no comparable path at all with x86 gear.
Britney's "product" is unique - the total package of her looks, her voice, and her sound. The fact that there is only one single suppluer of her product is perfectly acceptable.
Your comments are mostly the same as servoled so I won't repeat myself, but I will quickly comment on this bit. I'm totally in agreement that the total package is unique and it's OK for a single vendor to supply that particular package. The problem as I see it is that there are no other packages. Where is the vinyl recording of Britney? Where is the CD-R version with no coverart? Where is the version sung by Metallica (or whatever the latest boy band is)?
If capitalism was actually working here then an enterprising online music store would have been able to sell Britney's music *legally* before now. The recording is the product. The recording on a CD is the package. The recording as a downloadable MP3 is another package. The RIAA prevents the sale of packages that they don't fully control by using the legal force of copyright. Copyright is by its very nature a government granted monopoly. It is not possible to have capitalism if the state is interfering in the market!
There is nothing about CDs from certain artists only being availible form certain vendors that is against capitalism per se. To bring in the standard practice of bad slashdot analogies: You can't get a BMW 745i from any vendor other than BMW, but you don't see anyone complaining about a breakdown of capitalism in the automobile industry. If you can't afford a 745i, you buy a cheaper model.
I understand what you're saying but the analogy seems weak. BMW can stop other companies using the BMW trademark but they can't stop third parties producing identical spare parts or even producing a car that's near identical to the 745i (casually ignoring the complication of patents). But music isn't a physical good and has its own set of rules. For example, the music companies _can_ stop third parties from producing music that is too similar to Britney. So you could not hire some nameless singer to cover all Britney's songs because the lyrics and melodies are "owned" by the RIAA. With physical goods, similarity is desirable. With music, similarity is a great way to get sued.
The same should hold true in the music industry. If you don't want to shell out the big bucks for a Britney CD, then you can go find something else that you like that is availible from a cheaper vendor or buy nothing at all. If you have your heart set on Britney, then you will go buy her CD at the price they charge. The RIAA member labels can charge whatever they want and if people will continue to pay it, then they can continue to charge it just as BMW can charge whatever they want even though not everyone who wants one may think it is a fair price.
Perhaps, but my argument wasn't that this doesn't happen. A few of you are replying "well don't buy it" and "buy something else". Yes, I know that, thank you very much. My point is that this isn't capitalism. There is no competition. The RIAA picks which artist sings which songs. They don't license the lyrics/melodies to any other artists[1]. They don't license the artists recordings to other distribution channels. Hell, they have catalogues of recordings which they no longer publish, but they won't permit the artists to publish those recordings either! Talk about a great system; they don't want to publish, nor do they want anybody else to publish!
If the system wasn't broken then we'd have complete seperation of duties. The songwriters would write the songs and license them to many artists. The artists would be able to choose which recording studio to use. The studios would be able to choose the distribution channels. The channels would be able to choose the advertising mediums. We might end up with Whoops I Did It Again sung by 10 different artists and available for $15 in CD form, $5 in MP3 form, $50 in SACD form, $100 on vinyl, or who knows. The market would decide. Instead we have the RIAA deciding the price and the distribution on behalf of the market.
In this particular example, the RIAA has effectively licensed distribution of songs to iTunes. That's pretty incredible because it's a big change for them. But instead of allowing iTunes to find the price, RIAA is picking the price in advance. Hello? Something is wrong here. The RIAA should be licensing the songs to iTunes at the same price they license the songs to their CD manufacturing arm. The price discrepancy proves they aren't doing this; they're picking different prices for different distribution channels. And why isn't the RIAA licensing the same songs to competitors in the online distribution channel market? Ok, we all know why, and we all know it's legal, but it's definitely not capitalism. It's a cartel.
My high school required a basic economics class for graduation (usually taken in 9th or 10th grade) and also offered a AP (100 level college course) economics class for those who wished to to take it.
That's interesting. I thought I went to a decent school but apparently n
Slashdot Mirror
Huh? Windows was in the lead with Windows 3.0. Do you think that was usable? Microsoft was in the lead with MS-DOS! How freaking unusable was that!
Windows XP might finally have gotten a little bit usable but that's a first for Windows. Usability is heavily overrated. Microsoft won the market without decent usability. There are OTHER FACTORS involved here. I think price is the big one. Applications comes a close second. Usability is right down the bottom of the list alongside the box colour and the startup noise.
I'm in Australia. I can't buy music from iTunes even if I wanted to. But they still installed iTunes on my new PowerBook (which quickly got formatted to install Linux, but that's irrelevant). So why did they enable the iTunes Store feature on my laptop? It seems they're not increasing the market by letting me and other Australians browse the iTunes Store?
Is Apple Australia trying to increase piracy through P2P? Is Apple Australia trying to undermine the iTunes Store by letting people use iTMS bandwidth even though we can't buy the music? Or perhaps Apple Australia knows something that you don't. I'm going with that theory.
4. Have one of their friends with an iTunes client buy the music for them.
5. Become so impressed with the selection that you buy a Mac/WinPC just to run iTunes (hey, it might happen).
Use your imagination.
False dichotomy. Nice try, though.
Nice attempt at putting words into my mouth. Let's put back the words you removed with those ellipses.
Notice how I didn't say it "FACILITATE[D] PURCHASE OR DOWNLOAD OF AUTHORIZED PURCHASES". I even highlighted the bit where I said it only downloaded previews because you must have missed that the first time before "correcting" me.
Oh the irony, because if you'd actually made an effort to read my comment you wouldn't have felt the need to "correct" me.
BTW, I'm in Australia so I can't purchase songs from iTunes anyway.
No, because that would be an example of the majority imposing their will on the minority. In other words, mob rule. The government should take steps to prevent the tyranny of the majority.
Gah, I despise people that let their dogs roam free. Roaming dogs defecate on pavements and in other people's gardens. They terrorise small children (even if the dog is friendly, children can be scared witless by a roaming dog). They pose a hazard to passing cars (the driver doesn't know if your dog is going to run in front of the car or not). They chase and kill natural wildlife such as lizards and small marsupials. They find other dogs and engage in 3-hour long barking sessions that piss everybody off.
Lock your freaking dog up when you're not around. Do not let it roam.
Attacked? It's an alternate frontend, not a decryption device. You still get the same content from Apple, using the same protocol. It's only the previews, not the songs. All that has changed is that the potential number of users has been increased because you no longer need to use MacOS or Windows to run the official iTunes client.
How in betsy's name is that an attack? This is free publicity for iTunes Music Store on more platforms than Apple can officially support. This guy is basically increasing the market for Apple. Would you claim it was an attack on car sales if people starting P2Ping the TV commercials? I bet the advertising execs for the car company would love it. Think Honda.
I can think of two reasons.
First, I think there are sufficiently talented and experienced people to implement perhaps 5% of technology projects being built today. There is simply such a high demand and such a low supply of IT professionals that the market is completely off kilter. That's why salaries are so high and the average skill level is so low. The worst part about the high salaries is that they attracted terribly unskilled people who don't care about IT but only care about the money.
Second, the IT field is so freaking complex it defies imagination. There is simply too much to know. So you have these specialists who know only their narrow field, but inevitably those fields go out of fashion and the former specialist joins another field they have no experience in. It's a vicious cycle caused by (I think) the fact that IT isn't truly a mature industry. It's a research field that has been adopted too early by other industries. So there's lots of change which leads to regular retraining and inexperienced workers.
The original Windows used Shift+Delete and Shift-Insert (I think) for cut/paste. It wasn't until Windows 95 that they "standardised" on the Ctrl-C/V/X combos that Mac had been using for years[1]. I wrote "standardised" in quotes because I was finding Windows applications in 2001 that still didn't use those standard keys.
[1] Whether Apple invented those combos or got them from somewhere else, I don't know.
I'm certain that Linux isn't 100% safe, but I reckon it's a lot safer than Windows for the following reasons.
There are other reasons that will only hold true until Linux becomes more popular. So these are good reasons for now, but won't hold true forever.
Just like the US, as a member of the UN, has to... oh, wait a minute.
So the real complaint isn't that the Linux distros don't include JVMs (which is what jmorris originally claimed and why I pointed out three free JVMs included with Linux distros) but that jmorris and yourself have found the free JVMs to be of inferior quality. That has nothing to do with being "certified for production use" as you later asked.
My point about Linux was that at one time not long ago there would've been UNIX administrators saying similar things about Linux. "Would you trust your data to Linux, it's not even certified POSIX". As you use Linux you probably agree that quality has very little to do with certification. Thus my point that certification only gets you so far. Beyond that point you need to know the product; a certified heap of shit is still a heap of shit, and an uncertified gem is still a gem.
Would you trust your ecommerce site to Linux?
Let's face it, certification gives a certain amount of trust, but familiarity gives the rest.
Sun's JVM is a free download.
That might be true for Sun's JVM.
You're simply wrong.
There are several free JVMs on Linux and they are trivial to install (apt-get install).
It's no different.
I also hear other people calling those first people idiots. No software is perfect. Security is a process. Patching is forever.
Because if OSS has the same problem as non-OSS then it's not a fundamental problem with OSS development. It's a fundamental problem with all software development.
Though a bigger flaw in his arugment is if some OSS projects do not have the problems he lists, then they can't be fundamental problems with OSS development. It's not fundamental if sometimes it's there and sometimes it's not. Fundamental means the principle, the element, the core, the foundation, the very inescapable essence of the object. He's saying these are fundamental problems with OSS. Pointing to a single OSS project without those problems is the counterproof. I point to Firefox, because he seems to like Firefox.
Yeah, kind of like how companies always call them "issues" and "incidents" rather than "bugs" and "major fuckup". It's marketting spin.
Btw, I don't pee my pants over MacOS X. I think there's too much hype in that particular arena. It's FreeBSD/Mach and the NEXTSTEP GUI with some whizzy 3D effects. You'd think Apple had invented the Holy Grail the way some people rabbit on about it, though. I wonder where all these cheerleaders were when MacOS 6 had a good GUI on a crappy foundation. Probably using DOS and writing CONFIG.SYS files for their ISA sound card. Obviously the GUI and autoconfig wasn't that important.
No, it's not "very very hard". It just needs a different skillset to what you possess.
People always like to pretend that their profession is "very very hard" and that mere mortals can't attain their prowess. They often point to "inate ability" and "natural talent". It is a crock. You can learn good UI design skills, just like you learnt to code.
Stop mystifying UI design. I agree that the current OSS UIs can be improved, but we don't need to hire high-priests to solve the problem. We just need people willing to experiment and learn and get better at it.
I don't believe that at all. There isn't a single strong voice within Apple. Reading the stories on folklore.org, there was plenty of dispute over ways to do things. The final Mac took the best ideas from many people. So you don't need a single strong voice. You need a consensus.
One last point...
When OSS was getting started the detractors said "OSS is low quality because you need formal testing engineers and analysis labs to produce quality software". Well, look around, you've got how many million users who enjoy living on the bleeding edge? You've got the biggest acceptance labs ever imaginable. Release early. Release often. It works for code, so it will work for UI design as well. Nothing is better than feedback from somebody who uses the application in real life as opposed to an artificial environment.
Why am I calling it flamebait? Because of the 5 problems he describes, not a single one was unique to open source software development.
User interface design. I've seen some truly horrendous user interfaces coming out of non-OSS companies. He points to MacOS X as a shining beacon of "UI done right" and I have to agree. But that's Apple. They're very good at it. Not all companies are as good as Apple. Not even all MacOS application developers are that good!
Documentation. He slams OSS as providing a mixed bag of documentation. Non-OSS is exactly the same! I've worked on non-OSS which is poorly documented, and I've worked on non-OSS which is brilliantly documented. In fact the OSS UNIX-like docos blows away the majority of non-OSS UNIX competition. That's one reason why almost all the non-OSS UNIX companies are kaput; their offerings were considerably worse than Linux!
Feature-centric development. Has he forgotten that the bloated-does-everything application was the hallmark of non-OSS development for years? He rightly accuses some OSS developers of repeating the same mistake, but this is a bad design habit being carried over from the largely non-OSS PC OS and PC apps market. It has nothing to do with OSS specifically.
Programming for the self. This one really takes the cake for nonsense. Has this guy ever worked with Cadence? Or Oracle? Or Paradigm? Those apps are extremely difficult to ramp up with so they have the exact same issues that he describes for OSS. What does this specifically have to do with OSS? Once again, absolutely nothing.
Religious blindness. Lest we forget, the term "zealot" was first used to describe Mac users and later Amiga users. I realise I've just invoked Godwin's corollary (the person who first says "zealot" loses the argument) but the shoe fits. All platforms have their religious nutcases. Once again, not OSS specific.
It was a flamebait article designed to invoke angry responses. The 5 problems he listed were not fundamental problems with OSS. If they were, then all OSS projects would exhibit those 5 problems. The fact that some OSS projects don't have those 5 problems is proof that they're not fundamental to OSS development. The fact that some non-OSS projects do have those 5 problems is proof that they're issues with all software development, not just OSS.
What he has described are 5 pitfalls that all projects, OSS and non-OSS, sometimes fall into. If he had rewritten the paper as "A number of pitfalls that OSS projects would do well to avoid" then he would have had a winner. If had even written it as "some OSS projects have these undesirable qualities" then that would be OK. However written in the sweeping over-generalised sense, that those 5 problems are fundamental to OSS and therefore inescapable, it's inciteful nonsense.
Just in case it wasn't clear, I appreciate that Cray supercomputers are massively parallel but have shared memory and very fast interconnects, as opposed to a textbook cluster which has no shared memory and relatively slow interconnects. The ponderance about non-parallel vs parallel wasn't meant to reflect on Cray vs clusters. I was interested in the "embarassingly parallel" comment from the previous person.
In my very minimal and purely educational experience with HPC programming, one of the goals is to redesign the algorithm until it can be executed in the most parallel form. The problems I was working with were initially not very well parallelised so it would run like a slug on the 512 CPU supercomputer (not a cluster in the sense described above). After some maths manipulation you could get half-decent performance out of the same kit.
Which leads to my pondering thought, I wonder if all non-parallel algorithms can be rewritten in a parallel form? For example, I've personally worked the proof that all recursive algorithms can be written as iterative algorithms (and vice versa) as part of my coursework. I've got a gut feeling that the same "equivalence" won't hold for parallel vs serial algorithms, but I'd like to know if it has been formally (dis)proven.
Open source vulnerabilities and incidents get reported all the freaking time on Slashdot.
It's not good that they're having so many publicly visible flaws, but I'm really impressed that Microsoft is starting to be honest and forthcoming in their reporting. I remember a time when the bugs wouldn't get announced until the exploit was already wreaking havoc. Now it seems the bugs get reported and patched before there are any exploits. That's very professional; they can't be perfect but they can be responsible.
I have a lot of respect for that.
And that's called "putting all your eggs in one basket".
Your comments earlier about "RPM hell" aren't wrong, but they're not right either. You can get package dependency hell on Solaris, too. You can also get patch-hell. Ever had a patch break your Jumpstart server? Or a SYSV package refuse to install because you don't have a dependency so you have to manually discover and install the dependencies? RPM at least automates that process for you.
Your comments about flaky RedHat are I think biassed. I've seen Solaris do silly things too. For example, the dtlogin process would segfault on Solaris 9 if the hostname of your terminal wasn't in DNS (or it was something like that, I'm going from memory, it had something to do with NIS+ entries for the server as well, I'd have to go to my notes to find the exact problem and solution). It wasn't easy to debug that problem either.
I don't disagree with you about the pricing issues though. Sun gear is actually quite cheap. People compare a 280R to a P4 whitebox and think Sun gear is overpriced. They never compare a 280R against an equivalent system from IBM or Dell. I think the Sun gear is good value for money. It is a no-brainer if you consider the vertical upgrade path for Sun gear; there is no comparable path at all with x86 gear.
Your comments are mostly the same as servoled so I won't repeat myself, but I will quickly comment on this bit. I'm totally in agreement that the total package is unique and it's OK for a single vendor to supply that particular package. The problem as I see it is that there are no other packages. Where is the vinyl recording of Britney? Where is the CD-R version with no coverart? Where is the version sung by Metallica (or whatever the latest boy band is)?
If capitalism was actually working here then an enterprising online music store would have been able to sell Britney's music *legally* before now. The recording is the product. The recording on a CD is the package. The recording as a downloadable MP3 is another package. The RIAA prevents the sale of packages that they don't fully control by using the legal force of copyright. Copyright is by its very nature a government granted monopoly. It is not possible to have capitalism if the state is interfering in the market!
I understand what you're saying but the analogy seems weak. BMW can stop other companies using the BMW trademark but they can't stop third parties producing identical spare parts or even producing a car that's near identical to the 745i (casually ignoring the complication of patents). But music isn't a physical good and has its own set of rules. For example, the music companies _can_ stop third parties from producing music that is too similar to Britney. So you could not hire some nameless singer to cover all Britney's songs because the lyrics and melodies are "owned" by the RIAA. With physical goods, similarity is desirable. With music, similarity is a great way to get sued.
Perhaps, but my argument wasn't that this doesn't happen. A few of you are replying "well don't buy it" and "buy something else". Yes, I know that, thank you very much. My point is that this isn't capitalism. There is no competition. The RIAA picks which artist sings which songs. They don't license the lyrics/melodies to any other artists[1]. They don't license the artists recordings to other distribution channels. Hell, they have catalogues of recordings which they no longer publish, but they won't permit the artists to publish those recordings either! Talk about a great system; they don't want to publish, nor do they want anybody else to publish!
If the system wasn't broken then we'd have complete seperation of duties. The songwriters would write the songs and license them to many artists. The artists would be able to choose which recording studio to use. The studios would be able to choose the distribution channels. The channels would be able to choose the advertising mediums. We might end up with Whoops I Did It Again sung by 10 different artists and available for $15 in CD form, $5 in MP3 form, $50 in SACD form, $100 on vinyl, or who knows. The market would decide. Instead we have the RIAA deciding the price and the distribution on behalf of the market.
In this particular example, the RIAA has effectively licensed distribution of songs to iTunes. That's pretty incredible because it's a big change for them. But instead of allowing iTunes to find the price, RIAA is picking the price in advance. Hello? Something is wrong here. The RIAA should be licensing the songs to iTunes at the same price they license the songs to their CD manufacturing arm. The price discrepancy proves they aren't doing this; they're picking different prices for different distribution channels. And why isn't the RIAA licensing the same songs to competitors in the online distribution channel market? Ok, we all know why, and we all know it's legal, but it's definitely not capitalism. It's a cartel.
That's interesting. I thought I went to a decent school but apparently n