Someone tried to say that crashes=security-hole. That is possible but doesn't follow. It is quite possible that IE's recovery system is going into wierd areas of the code in the recovery and that might be the greater security hole. What IS IE doing? If something crashes, it might be a DoS, but at least it doesn't send your password file. I don't think I've seen very many cases where these are exploitable - you can't "inject" code, merely cause a crash. Maybe the others need an exception handler?
IE has had more documented holes (and fixes). Maybe they will find more in FireFox and Mozilla as time goes by, but I doubt it. If they do I think they will be fixed more quickly since Firefox is NOT part of the OS. The monolithic design has its flaws. There is a dicipline in having to be cross-platform and by separating out the components - flaws tend to be isolated.
Long ago, they would have two tracks, so that the 486 team upon release would move to the pentium pro/2, while the pentium team would be in the middle.
I think the Itanium tripped them up. It was supposed to be another generation, and they took too long to abandon it.
That might explain the P4 being slow, and the P-M deriving from the P3.
What were they smoking? I don't know but I think the problem is that it was being smoked in large, long pipes.
Apple is still around partially because they took a RISCy approach, so do more per GHz, and can step up the GHz since they don't have that heiroglyphic like x86 instruction set to decode.
Own the sun - Sue him for melanoma!
on
Lawyers In Space...
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· Score: 1, Interesting
the solar flares, and all the other bad things the sun does. He owns it, he should keep it on a leash and clean up after it.
PBS doesn't stand for pornographic broadcasting system.
They are free to stop taking Taxpayer dollars, else Taxpayers should be able to call the tune as long as they pay the piper.
They should move to cable, put R ratings on their shows so the V chip can cut them out and use whatever language they want. Barney and Big Bird should be public domain since I paid for them.
But they would fold tomorrow without the subsidy. Let them. Or let them quit complaining. Corporations have to follow the stockholders wishes, GSEs have to follow congressional whims.
Let them stop taking taxpayer money and they would be really free.
Some have made this point, but if I burn some noxious substance in a public park, or blast "music" like the FBI used againt Noriega and the Branch Davidians, most here wouldn't suggest I should have the freedom to do that.
And I haven't seen a massive outpouring of civil rights for smokers. I don't smoke but it is now worse than apartheid. People will cough from 50 feet upwind - and you call people who want to take responsibility for their own children prudish?
If you want to subscribe to the SewageVision cable channel, go ahead. But you know what you are getting.
Also, I don't see any of the geeks here wanting to repeal the Pure Food and Drug act, which is merely truth in labeling. If something is labeled as a "family" show, it should not contain obscenity. If broadcasters simply want to label everything including game shows PG-13 or worse, they are free to, but then they will be turned off (moreso than they already are).
Broadcasters can't have it both ways - they want the public airwaves, but want to turn it into a marketing sex-fair. They want to label things as family fare, but then show and talk obscenely.
Starting with the last - He praises M$ development environments. OK, what was the last major Bug that even made the Drudge Report. An IIS and IE combo - why are IIS sites defaced more since it is the minority and even CERT is saying to switch browsers (how do I load Firefox or Apache into Visual.net?).
He complains about C malloc/free (ever heard of electric fence?). C++ (wasn't OOP the magic bullet?) gave us new and delete and some garbage collection and more memory leaks (but he says we shouldn't use Java which actually gets the conceptual model right). Oh, and every makefile I have has -Wall, and running them produces no warnings (at least when I'm through changing things algorithmically). And I'll have to look again for a good opensource lint. I used commercial products for a while.
Since I'm often doing embedded, I have to be careful and have space and timing requirements (and in many cases NO debug facilities) few others have to deal with.
The article is probably worth reading, but won't be very helpful. A lot of people don't understand the art of programming even if they make their living that way. The people doing the hiring either want the buzzword checklist, or don't care if the result is brittle (at least not when the project starts).
His solution is more "magic bullets". Everyone I know (even many I would not let write a simple sort routine) was horrified by ActiveX (v.s. Java). How do you make that secure? You can't.
A security shell inserter like pixie? Maybe it would be a source of exploits (basically it is a manual virus - if you can alter an EXE to add a security shell...). And an IDE can be a great tool (Emacs works for me) but also can make one lazy - I assume IE and IIS with all their holes are developed on the same praised IDEs.
There is an art to programming and it often takes 5 years and is a way of thinking, not a "method". I do Java and C++, but I don't do them differently than I do C. But much education (and investment) seems to be toward finding a product or method to replace process.
As often has been said: Security is a process not a product.
My own saying: I don't write complex programs, I simplify and reduce complex tasks into simple programs.
I print out web pages and read them over lunch, dinner (eating slower), or when I wait for other things.
Audiobooks, particularly from blackstone audio ( 1 800 Say Book / blackstoneaudio.com). If you ever wished you read Milton, Mises, or Marcus Aurelius, they have it and you can do it while exercising, bicycling, driving, etc. They also have the best Sci-Fi, history, and other things.
Don't try to follow other's paths. If you don't like the outdoors, watching football, or other activities, don't bother with them. Find what you like and stick with it.
You may need to find a place. Contracting/Consulting generally is a series of project starts or continuings that might be within your style. You don't need a degree, but you might not be able to get into some dinosaur companies as a direct employee without it. I had some college - what I liked (science and math), but didn't finish.
You need knowledge, but you can get that yourself. I didn't have the internet when I was starting, but had Borders and other bookstores, and libraries. The internet and most computer infrastructure is documented on the internet.
Learn how to learn and access information. You will be ahead of 98% of your competitors who might have a lot of static knowledge. Also bring things across boundaries. My hobbies and other subjects like chemistry and biology apply - I have more tools to apply.
Also if you know software, learn hardware. And maybe mechanics. A robot needs all three. If a chance presents itself, learn beyond the task - learn accounting, bookkeeping, management, whatever you are implementing.
Actually I have to use Windows XP (though I'm usually in bash under cygwin) at work.
1. It takes FOREVER to boot. On fast hardware. I have to type in a password, but sometimes it is several minutes between power and when I can check email. And I've checked the process viewer - over 80% idle or whatever it means under windows (waiting for a network timeout? background services? Who knows - the disk is really moving though).
2. If I'm careful, it usually doesn't crash, but (aside from occasional bad 3rd party hardware) I rarely reboot Mac OS X, or linux and that is usually for a kernel update or somesuch. My Zaurus has a longer uptime. It really isn't stable.
3. It is both slow and stupid. I grumble at the few times I get the SPoD on Mac OS X or if something won't release focus under X. (BTW, Mac OS X got this wrong, when I click iconify, the WM should do it and tell the process, not just ask the process to iconify, but most Mac apps put this event on the fast track). Usually when I try minimizing a windows process, it won't until it wakes up and I can actually use it. If an app is going to ignore my (other) input for over 5-10 seconds, it should let me iconify it immediately.
I've had lots of wierd and unexplainable "freezes" under Windows - response becomes very slow, then it may or may not get better. Sometimes it is as simple as a loose network cable (Why can't Windows multitask?)
4. When something does go wrong on Linux, I can usually diagnose it (lsof, strace, ltrace if nothing else). Windows will develop problems and I have no idea what went bad. Bad linux configurations are fixable. Bad windows configurations usually means reloading everything from scratch. I lent a Knoppix CD for a coworker to recover his files on an unbootable 98 system.
5. Mal/Spy/Ad/Evil-ware. The same thing that makes windows hard to fix makes Linux and Mac OS X hard to forcibly corrupt and the detection and repair is easier. You could write spyware or a virus, but...
I was just interrupted. A coworker was having a potential virus problem...
it would be too difficult to write an effective virus even in a Mac monoculture.
It parses Tiger data and uses either GTK (1 or 2) or Qt.
Roadmap includes street and address lookup.
The graphics aren't quite there (it doesn't handle polygons well though you get the outlines, nor cities), but it works well, and fast enough to do a moving map on a Zaurus.
It was easy for me to link it to Kismet so I can see APs by signal and channel popup on the moving map.
Tiger does have a 300 page document that explains the format, but there are problems. I've been trying my hand since roadmap development seems stalled.
1. The "polygons" are sometimes disjoint. For example, a lake with an island in the middle will have two loops to form a donut/annulus shape. This doesn't bother things like PDF or postscript (where you can do more than one moveto between fills - just plot all the boundaries and even/odd fill algorithm works out). Something like Qt with just a single chain of segments needs to play masking or XOR games.
The segments the polygons are composed of are also not organized so you must read them all and sort them (endpoint to matching start point) into their several loops.
2. The street types aren't accurate. Some 7 lane roads have the same coding as a two lane barely paved residential street. Also, there is no consistency for things like names of state roads (state road 20, state route 20, il 20, illinois 20, ill 20, M-20 (michigan), M 20...).
3. The normal "polygon" is a census tract, so a large city may be a mosaic of thousands. There are easy algorithms to find a boundary and create the larger polygons, but you do have to transform the data.
4. There are zero-size features for some "chains" (series of line segments). I.e. a polyline with only a start and end point, and both are the same.
There are probably more hiccups, but I have a program that can automatically fetch the tiger 2003.zip archive if needed, process it into my database, then generate the shape files - collected polygons and chains (my internal format - I need to conserve space and add speed hints for my Zaurus) and plot them in PDF or Qt, the latter you can pan and zoom. The polygons work fine in PDF, but I haven't yet figured out a "good" way in Qt to do the island in a lake. It isn't that difficult, and the Tiger format is well documented.
Back in the 1980s, a programmer named Rodey on BIX (Byte Information eXchange) had a license that prevented "military" use. There was much debate back then, but my thought was that software should not be part of a political debate. I think Apple had an anti-nuclear clause in their license back then.
This is worse than the BSD advertisement. Now will each driver or filesystem contain restrictions so it can't be used for the military, or to promote or fight againt abortions, or for the GOP or Democrats, or for police agencies, surveillence, or something else?
His quitting can only make Linux worse (if he was doing that much to help to begin with). So he has handed the military a "heckler's veto" - because they might use it (maybe 0.01% of use), he will penalize the rest of the community.
If the browser and media player are "part of the OS", which was a decision from Bill, not engineers, then a flaw in them is by definition a flaw in the OS (they run as "root").
The second flaw (which they are slowly fixing) is "open unless closed". Nmap a fresh XP install. I almost shrieked and fainted. In this way, windows is far more open - to attacks. UPNP? A dozen other "services" I could not shut off or close (where is lsof -i? And what would break if I shut some of these ports at the source?).
Lindows runs as root (shame on them), but they don't have the second flaw. Someone running evolution isn't going to be able to cause the same problems as someone running outlook. The fine-grained modularity limits what any attachment can do.
For that matter, Mac OS X has been around for quite a while, but features even better ease of use, while keeping all the security design decisions of the typical linux/unix/bsd (Safari and Quicktime are add-ons; ports are closed unless explicitly opened). Where are all the viri and worms?
In fact, good GUI and good security share the same idea - good fundamental design. MS eye-candy (fading menus? Why?) is as badly flawed as their security (MacOSX-window fades showing dock position).
It has everything including international channels.
It has NASA and many tertiary channels (Discovery health, science). College course channels, NGO channels.
There are two times a year the signal goes out for a few minutes per day (because the sun is directly behind the satellite). I've never noticed it though.
A larger dish helps, but you need a really bad storm to weaken the signal to the point of loss - something a very ugly color on the weather map. Snow isn't very bothersome.
I don't have problems, but in spring and fall I tweak the alignment of the dish, and the only other big thing is to keep the path clear - I had a tree grow into the path and reduced the signal - a laser pointer on a protractor with a plumbline helps - the beam was hitting the leaves.
I've had far worse problems with (Comcast) cable, but I'm a long distance from the tap. Also they save money by using cheap coax that doesn't survive weather - the first few feet gets filled with water which becomes ice after a few years and the signal decays. With the center wire hanging down from a long length of cracked coax between the poles they were telling me it would be some high per-hour fee because "It is probably something inside your house".
Even when cleaned/replaced there are channels that still look much better on the dish.
Then there was the defective power supply that killed 2/3 internet packets on a warm day (I actually correlated packet loss with temprature) which took 2 months to find, and I couldn't use my internet during 11am through 8pm most days. Of course they would send the tech out at 10am so there was nothing to show. When I did, they replaced the cable-modem 7 times. They also would insist that I connect something (my iBook) with internet explorer to "prove to them" there was a problem although my linux firewall would show the lost packets. Beyond the 7 modems, every piece of coax and any other thing like couplers or amplifiers for about 1/4 mile toward that booster box was replaced - many twice. They finally replaced that box (which was overheating and adding noise but leaving the carrier or other test signals alone) and it worked. But that was internet.
With cable, plan on being home for several multi-hour periods ("sometime between 1 and 4" which can mean after 5:30 in practice if they come at all) if you need them to do anything. Dish service isn't perfect, but has been far better than cable and I can generally do things myself since I own and can access all the pieces.
First, he seems entirely unaware of RTLinux which is a full speed RT layer that sits below Linux and has the reliable near-zero latency he calls for, and it is a commercial product (with an open source side).
IF you need that hard real-time, it is probably the best solution. The 2.6 kernel might be "soft" real-time, but again, that means quantifying the required latency.
For many things including lots of existing systems you need a smart peripheral or second small processor (like a UART with a FIFO).
Much of the rest is confusion.
First, it is easier to "roll your own" OR buy proprietary? He says that it would be to difficult to look inside the Linux kernel to figure out something (not possible with most proprietary OSes without a big $ source license), buy you can apparently recode the whole easily.
There are places where "roll your own" fits - I typically can do most things in careful interrupt driven events, and foreground (every N milliseconds) and background loops. When you get into task switching or MM, it gets hard.
If you are very limited, e.g. using existing hardware that doesn't have room and can't be upgraded, the proprietary uOSes are probably best. One thing to note - if he is comparing like to like, the proprietary OSes get big when you add things like network stacks and filesystems (which may not have things like journaling - can you scandisk your flash?).
The current "small" platforms run linux fine. ARM and MIPs (think Zaurus and AMD's PDA platform) are well supported, and there is uCLinux. Here again, if you can get beyond a certain hardware threshold, you can find a lot of things available.
His article was titled "The myth of the embeddedLinux TOOLS market". That is probably true in that most people are likely to prefer GCC to something else (or it would be nice if they took the same command line switches instead of having to redo complex compiler invocations just to use the proprietary version). And they would probably prefer to mix and match (use GNU ld and ELF or whatever the Linux target object format is).
But what does that have to do with Linux? Or Windows CE (which isn't doing too well either and has far worse timing and resource problems).
Support? It's there, but harder and probably not at the same level, but a Linux wizard isn't an Embedded wizard, and vice-versa and if you are already being cheap, you aren't going to pay me (who happens to know both spaces) what I'd ask any more than you would buy a support contract.
Let me summarize my perspective (I do embedded for a living).
1. Linux isn't a panacea, but is or can be an acceptable solution for a very wide range of embedded products. The rest fall into the custom or proprietary niches. Linux tends to get better and hardware gets cheaper. It also helps in many things having the desktop and target run the same thing.
2. The free tools (compilers, etc.) aren't broken, so the market for "good" or better tools isn't going to be large. A tool cannot correct a design error (trying to run Linux in 64K which seems to be his example). Specialty tools have a better chance, but not "Our proprietary IDE now can compile the Linux Kernel" type tools.
(Think filesystems - even if you had a "better" filesystem, it would have to be a lot better or have some critical feature for someone to want to pay for it instead of using one of the various systems already there).
3. There are add-ons and products in other areas that have a market - like RT-linux which can be used as-needed. There are prototyping boards and systems that come with Linux preconfigured with most of the configuration work done. There are consulting and support services - if you want or need to pay for them, and are competetive with the proprietary OS.
He is correct with the basis of his article - It isn't easy to sell bottled watter in the rain next to a public fountain. But his criticisms of Linux and of the development process and targets are way off. But he doesn't consider reasons for picking Linux legitimate though the engineers probably did consider things carefully.
No one brought up the 2.4 kernel exploit that hit Debian either...
Microsoft now wants to move to monthly security patches.
Apple has been running at less than this rate with updates to fix individual problems instead of the patch-of-the-day or monthly-mega-patch.
"Linux" (including every mail delivery agent, window manager, office suite, etc.) is probably somewhere in between.
But someone else had it exactly right - Apple and most Linux systems have services TURNED OFF BY DEFAULT. You can't have an exploit run against something that isn't turned on.
There should be a critical mass of.mac accounts using Apple's Mail client, and there's Evolution, but these haven't been the vectors for massive mail pandemics, outlook/ie/windows is (aren't the former part of the OS now?).
There's lots of Macs, and Linux systems, but they don't have their database servers exposed to allow something like slapper or slammer. It is actually hard to figure out what to kill on a windows system to shut off something you don't need.
Also note the exploit for Mac was an "inside" job - you had to gain access to an internal network and do a few fancy things, not find an IIS connected directly to the internet.
Yes, you can die in a collision in a tank, but it is less likely than in a huge SUV, which is less likely than in a compact car.
No, Apple isn't perfect. Neither is Linux. But they are an order of magnitude better than Windows and still would be if they were the dominant OS - i.e. maybe we would get one bad worm every 5-10 years instead of quarterly to yearly.
First, other emergency vehicles can or should be able to go through red lights. Motorists might not cooperate though since if they see all-red they may treat it as a 4-way stop.
They could however instead flash red and yellow alternately and quickly so that it would mean EXACTLY and ONLY that an emergency vehicle is approaching and ALL ways need to stop to give it right of way.
Gridlock isn't dependent on the traffic lights (remembering various stories about New York where the fire engines were in the middle of a block and it would take 30 minutes to go just over a mile.
I would love to see Feynman science lectures, but I can see Science and many others on the university channels on my Dish network's third feed (the 9400 range).
I would not love to "watch a heated debate" about stem-cell research. It would be better to be enlightened with what can be done with umbilical or adult or other stem cells v.s. embryos (are they even necessary). It is hard to find facts when the players have political or ideological axes to grind and bend or select facts for their view.
If they want "heated" debates, they should do the creation v.s. evolution.
And if I want to watch morality, I can tune in TBN or EWTN (which I do tune into - I don't mean this as an insult, only that such on a "science" channel would be out of context).
The last thing the airwaves need is a secular version of the televangelist. "Save people from ignorance - donate now" while thumping "Atlas Shrugged" on the podium.
If all we get is "We are all going to die from global warming if the ozone hole doesn't get us first (so call your congressman and tell him to double NASAs budget) and we must discard all technology and go back to medieval tech" there is no point.
I would prefer something along the way Scientific American used to be (somewhat over a decade ago when I let my subscription lapse) and not dumbed down, but with enough extra explanation to lift me up to fully understanding the latest in physics, chemistry, astronomy and astrophysics, mathematics, etc. Nothing preachy, just solid information made interesting. And just present the facts - just report, let me decide, to plagiarize the FOX News line.
As other posters pointed out, you are very selective with your quotes when you don't wrench one out of context.
The truth is more complex. The founders weren't all deists, yet they were specifically avoiding creating a theocracy or anything near it. Perhaps the best way of putting it is that Government should be concerned with this world, not the next. This was not a problem when government was small and you could go your entire life without contact with it.
As far as national defense, a postal and road system, official weights and measures and definitions for things like property, and a judiciary to settle disputes, there is nothing which has to be involved with religion.
I don't know how I would christianize or muslimize these functions anymore than I could create a hindu oil change different from a shinto one. Either the oil and filter are replaced with new and things are tightened properly or they are not.
At the time of our founders, we had Public schools, not Government schools, but I doubt the average/.er can discern the difference.
Ideas like education and feeding the poor and hospitals are religious ideas. An atheist might think they are good (when they aren't preaching survival of the fittest), but having government involved with these (other than in fascist or communist countries) is a recent development.
I believe in separation of church and state. But that means that the Supreme court should get Government out of schools, not "under god" out of the pledge.
And why should atheists "opt-out" of the pledge (to the point of a universal ban) but Christians and others not be able to avoid Orgy-education and "we weren't created, we evolved" evolution classes? Note I am not talking what is right (true) or not, but if the standard is one student's offense at a dogma can ban it I just want it to be applied equally.
Then atheists and christians (and others) can set up and fund their own schools.
Why should government not regulate with and interfere with the internet and web standards and everything else that seem to raise the libertarian hackles when proposed when they regulate all these other things? If you don't want the government on your line, you should not want it in your or your children's school.
has done fairly well, and there are a lot of books available.
Until the DRM is as transparent and prices are as good as the Apple music store, I don't think they they will get much market share.
Right now I often do audiobook rentals. I can even load the CD versions into my iPod and take it with me (and yes, I do delete them after listening).
I don't need another thing to carry around beyond my Zaurus and/or iPod, but most e-books aren't available for my Zaurus (the C760 with the good screen) - and are only available for something I wouldn't use to read them. PDFs aren't the answer until there is an 8.5x11 pda (and pockets to put it in). Not-too-fancy HTML would be best. But theres no place for DRM.
To ask a simple question with the "public trust" model, do the new grids get constructed where the capacity is inadequate, or where a connected politician needs jobs or favors?
Private does NOT mean beholden to shareholders, and even if it were so, somewhere I miss where it is in shareholder's interest to have the stock tank because they are failing to deliver a product and thus aren't profitable.
With public corporations, at least shareholders eventually have to throw out bad management or the company will go bankrupt (e.g. Enron). Government has no such requirement - they just say they need to raise taxes as more money will fix it.
Consider the "Public School" monopoly that regularly produces graduates who are functionally illiterate and innumerate - not everywhere but the point in having universal educaiton is to educate every child and NOT have education be an accident of geography. This is probably more serious than the power grid, has been going on for two decades, and is resolved by homeschooling, private schools, or by those who can afford it moving to a good school district. Bad schools stay bad yet are often the most expensive in terms of tax money per pupil, good schools stay good. So which areas of the country will be reliable and which will have regular blackouts (until the taxpayer coughs up more money and then we will see)?
Not all companies are ailing or mismanged, but I think under your proposal, all would be nationalized.
And I've missed where government has suddenly become magic and creates solutions to engineering problems by waving some kind of magic wand.
Government created the problem by only deregulating part of the grid (the parts Enron gave money to the DNC and RNC to deregulate).
If anyone is old enough or had read, consider the S&L crisis. Risk wasn't deregulated - the FSLIC (now rolled into the FDIC) carried all the risk, but the S&Ls would get all the reward - heads the S&L bigshots win, tails, the taxpayer loses. We have that kind of deregulation in the power industry.
Some places must buy energy from others by law, some can't or must do certain contracts.
In that, either complete regulation or complete deregulation (with proper economic incentives) would be better than the mix we have now.
In a true marketplace I could choose if I wanted to attach to a more expensive supplier that guaranteed 5 sigma uptime, or a cheaper one that might have an occasional blackout. That might be impractical.
Another problem that goes unsolved is environmental/NIMBY. If no one wants electrical power lines across their area, and don't want the generating plants (some nuclear or coal) next to the industrial areas that consume the power, how do we get power from where it is politically acceptable to generate it to where it is used?
That is a place for government and a legitimate use for Eminent domain (instead of where they are declaring nice neighborhoods "blighted" so they can put in an Ikea store). But if they didn't do it under the current system, why would they do it under reregulation?
Maybe if they replaced all the bureaucrats with engineers, government would be able to solve engineering problems. But shifting an engineering problem from the engineering to the political domain doesn't solve it.
Power deregulation--in reality, a change in regulations--went slowly at first. Not until 1998 were utilities, beginning in California, compelled to sell off their generating capacity to independent power producers, such as Enron and Dynergy.
So "deregulation" means privatizing the most profitable aspects so the Enrons who give $$$ to the DNC and RNC can make money, and forcing the other companies to buy from them at extortionate rates. Something similar happened in CA where they could not by law enter into long-term contracts.
We already have socialism in that "no one" is responsible for the blackouts - if there were there would be someone to sue for breach of contract or similar breaks.
There are ways of making the power grid reliable and robust, but simply having a government agency run it has no magic (consider the IRS who admits to a 33% error rate).
Changing an engineering problem to an economic (the semi-regulation) or political (full regulation) will impede any solution.
Even so, we should really try private-enterprise. Penalize failures but let them keep the profits from keeping things inexpensive and reliable.
Just like Dell, and every other supplier does, spend days or weeks stabilizing XP on the platform then image the hard drive...
Linux doesn't need the "spend days stabilizing" part. Things tend to work, and if a few things don't they are easily traceable since the hood isn't welded shut and linux has tools to probe the system state.
I can install a stable Linux system on any computer with any hardware - it tends to work or not work or require one or two tweaks for things like sound (e.g. if the BIOS isn't allocating interrupts right and there is a conflict or starvation of resources).
If they don't take them home, some version of the k12 LTSP project would work so there wouldn't even be a problem switching laptops.
My WXP laptop at work isn't stable - Usually I can get something done after the third reboot.
Installing any Windows OS usually takes over an hour and often doesn't work, or when it does it will crash the first time it sees new hardware. Trivial upgrades become nightmares.
If you are comparing the vendor's "return to original CD wiping out everything" state when you open the box and the OS is already installed v.s. actually using an install disk on a new hard drive, you are just being stupid.
Even NT wasn't that great - my video capture card and audio card could use different interrupts but NT wouldn't so whenever (except once after removing and reinstalling the drivers then rebooting for three hours to see if I could find some order it would accept) I turned on the sound and it would lock up hard. Ctrl-Alt-Del wouldn't work. I couldn't make it work by allocating interrupts manually but this was easy though unnecessary with Linux.
Viri and/or Worms? One wardriver with one infected laptop near one school and Michigan overloads the internet infrastructure. There is enough problem with monoculture in just the OS. Having hundreds of thousands of identical loads all connected together wirelessly is a cause for nightmares.
This could still be a problem on Macs, but they don't do stupid things like giving everyone Admin priviledges or leaving two dozen ports open "just in case someone ever uses them" and makes it impossible to find the service or driver to shut down to close the port.
I will give one thing to Apple because they want WIRELESS networking - they've been doing it longer and so it won't just be the laptop, but the access points and other infrastructure. Otherwise that will also require major investment and I don't know how many people really know how to do wireless infrastructure correctly. Including and especially any security.
And the MS-BSA Goon squad is another problem. They will want a windows license for every cpu, computer (yes, even iMacs if you remember Oregon) and probably an Office and other licenses as well. Compliance costs probably make it not worth it.
Rarely does someone expose their cluelessness in such a public forum. If this is really from the president of SCO, we should all short the stock now.
He keep saying that we are theives and pirates yet still does not enumerate what specifically we were supposed to have stolen or priated.
Nor does he address the issue that the entire body was distributed by SCO under GPL which should negate any claims.
Or to correct one of his sentences: SCO software code was present in software distributed [BY SCO FROM SCO SERVERS] under the GPL. [And this wasn't something up for a week by mistake and pulled].
Does SCO respect the terms of licenses such as the GPL or do they not?
"You stole my car!" "No, you gave it to me, here is the signed title". "That piece of paper doesn't matter! It's still my care until I change my mind back that you should have it".
If he won't say what they are alleging is stolen property, I don't see why anyone from the OpenSource community should cooperate. We don't know that ESR knows the identity of the DoSer, only that enough information was given that he/she was in the community. Show your cards before you ask us to show ours.
He doesn't want to help us police ourselves by removing the offending portions of the Linux kernel (if any) despite numerous and continuous requests to do so. He wants to play the FUD game.
He says we should check the IP to prevent unauthorized transfers. We have done so. If we erred, just show us (of course he still doesn't want to).
It would also help if he were literate enough to read and understand all of Perens' commentary and analysis. The code would not compile so (assuming it was real code) it couldn't be part of any real unix. The parts in question were in sections that were either BSD copyright or where AT&T lost the copyright - far from an admission of guilt and any reading would have made this clear. It sounds like SCO is accusing someone of stealing water by drinking out of a public fountain.
Far from "ignoring or challenging copyright laws", we are the ones asking that the GPL which is based on it is upheld AND again ask to say where we are ignoring or violating it. Desparately asking for precise areas of violation is hardly ignoring or challenging a law.
"Thief!". "what?". "You stole something!" "What do you think I stole?" "I'm not going to tell you but you are still all thieves and liars and probably club baby seals every chance you get...".
Instead of the dozens of paragraphs ranting about how important copyright is, I think it would have been better for all sides if he simply showed a half-dozen examples of code he alledges are stolen.
Instead of rant and counter-rant, how about some facts? Show us the evidence. For that matter, show us the sections of code even if you don't want to show us any evidence.
You want to help the Opensource community deal with copyright - just show us. We will respond faster than you can imagine.
We think we can bear the harsh light of day, but why can't your evidence seem to?
As you are violating the GPL by claiming some of the code you destributed is now covered by your copyright, And as I retain the copyright to a portion of the Linux code you now must license from me, I am submitting this invoice.
Please remit $50,000 for the license to use my code as soon as possible as interest charges will accrue.
-
Any other Linux developer want to join in some action to bill SCO for their non-GPL use of our IP?
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Someone tried to say that crashes=security-hole. That is possible but doesn't follow. It is quite possible that IE's recovery system is going into wierd areas of the code in the recovery and that might be the greater security hole. What IS IE doing? If something crashes, it might be a DoS, but at least it doesn't send your password file. I don't think I've seen very many cases where these are exploitable - you can't "inject" code, merely cause a crash. Maybe the others need an exception handler?
IE has had more documented holes (and fixes). Maybe they will find more in FireFox and Mozilla as time goes by, but I doubt it. If they do I think they will be fixed more quickly since Firefox is NOT part of the OS. The monolithic design has its flaws. There is a dicipline in having to be cross-platform and by separating out the components - flaws tend to be isolated.
Long ago, they would have two tracks, so that the 486 team upon release would move to the pentium pro/2, while the pentium team would be in the middle.
I think the Itanium tripped them up. It was supposed to be another generation, and they took too long to abandon it.
That might explain the P4 being slow, and the P-M deriving from the P3.
What were they smoking? I don't know but I think the problem is that it was being smoked in large, long pipes.
Apple is still around partially because they took a RISCy approach, so do more per GHz, and can step up the GHz since they don't have that heiroglyphic like x86 instruction set to decode.
the solar flares, and all the other bad things the sun does. He owns it, he should keep it on a leash and clean up after it.
Same for NPR.
PBS doesn't stand for pornographic broadcasting system.
They are free to stop taking Taxpayer dollars, else Taxpayers should be able to call the tune as long as they pay the piper.
They should move to cable, put R ratings on their shows so the V chip can cut them out and use whatever language they want. Barney and Big Bird should be public domain since I paid for them.
But they would fold tomorrow without the subsidy. Let them. Or let them quit complaining. Corporations have to follow the stockholders wishes, GSEs have to follow congressional whims.
Let them stop taking taxpayer money and they would be really free.
Some have made this point, but if I burn some noxious substance in a public park, or blast "music" like the FBI used againt Noriega and the Branch Davidians, most here wouldn't suggest I should have the freedom to do that.
And I haven't seen a massive outpouring of civil rights for smokers. I don't smoke but it is now worse than apartheid. People will cough from 50 feet upwind - and you call people who want to take responsibility for their own children prudish?
If you want to subscribe to the SewageVision cable channel, go ahead. But you know what you are getting.
Also, I don't see any of the geeks here wanting to repeal the Pure Food and Drug act, which is merely truth in labeling. If something is labeled as a "family" show, it should not contain obscenity. If broadcasters simply want to label everything including game shows PG-13 or worse, they are free to, but then they will be turned off (moreso than they already are).
Broadcasters can't have it both ways - they want the public airwaves, but want to turn it into a marketing sex-fair. They want to label things as family fare, but then show and talk obscenely.
Starting with the last - He praises M$ development environments. OK, what was the last major Bug that even made the Drudge Report. An IIS and IE combo - why are IIS sites defaced more since it is the minority and even CERT is saying to switch browsers (how do I load Firefox or Apache into Visual.net?).
He complains about C malloc/free (ever heard of electric fence?). C++ (wasn't OOP the magic bullet?) gave us new and delete and some garbage collection and more memory leaks (but he says we shouldn't use Java which actually gets the conceptual model right). Oh, and every makefile I have has -Wall, and running them produces no warnings (at least when I'm through changing things algorithmically). And I'll have to look again for a good opensource lint. I used commercial products for a while.
Since I'm often doing embedded, I have to be careful and have space and timing requirements (and in many cases NO debug facilities) few others have to deal with.
The article is probably worth reading, but won't be very helpful. A lot of people don't understand the art of programming even if they make their living that way. The people doing the hiring either want the buzzword checklist, or don't care if the result is brittle (at least not when the project starts).
His solution is more "magic bullets". Everyone I know (even many I would not let write a simple sort routine) was horrified by ActiveX (v.s. Java). How do you make that secure? You can't.
A security shell inserter like pixie? Maybe it would be a source of exploits (basically it is a manual virus - if you can alter an EXE to add a security shell...). And an IDE can be a great tool (Emacs works for me) but also can make one lazy - I assume IE and IIS with all their holes are developed on the same praised IDEs.
There is an art to programming and it often takes 5 years and is a way of thinking, not a "method". I do Java and C++, but I don't do them differently than I do C. But much education (and investment) seems to be toward finding a product or method to replace process.
As often has been said: Security is a process not a product.
My own saying: I don't write complex programs, I simplify and reduce complex tasks into simple programs.
Good Cheap Quick, pick 2.
And I think the price of admission (just the spec) is more than the bounty is likely to be.
The Sharp Zaurus is stuck at 2.4.18 linux kernel because the SD module can't be updated by the community.
I print out web pages and read them over lunch, dinner (eating slower), or when I wait for other things.
Audiobooks, particularly from blackstone audio ( 1 800 Say Book / blackstoneaudio.com). If you ever wished you read Milton, Mises, or Marcus Aurelius, they have it and you can do it while exercising, bicycling, driving, etc. They also have the best Sci-Fi, history, and other things.
Don't try to follow other's paths. If you don't like the outdoors, watching football, or other activities, don't bother with them. Find what you like and stick with it.
You may need to find a place. Contracting/Consulting generally is a series of project starts or continuings that might be within your style. You don't need a degree, but you might not be able to get into some dinosaur companies as a direct employee without it. I had some college - what I liked (science and math), but didn't finish.
You need knowledge, but you can get that yourself. I didn't have the internet when I was starting, but had Borders and other bookstores, and libraries. The internet and most computer infrastructure is documented on the internet.
Learn how to learn and access information. You will be ahead of 98% of your competitors who might have a lot of static knowledge. Also bring things across boundaries. My hobbies and other subjects like chemistry and biology apply - I have more tools to apply.
Also if you know software, learn hardware. And maybe mechanics. A robot needs all three. If a chance presents itself, learn beyond the task - learn accounting, bookkeeping, management, whatever you are implementing.
Or a cleaner that streaks.
Actually I have to use Windows XP (though I'm usually in bash under cygwin) at work.
1. It takes FOREVER to boot. On fast hardware. I have to type in a password, but sometimes it is several minutes between power and when I can check email. And I've checked the process viewer - over 80% idle or whatever it means under windows (waiting for a network timeout? background services? Who knows - the disk is really moving though).
2. If I'm careful, it usually doesn't crash, but (aside from occasional bad 3rd party hardware) I rarely reboot Mac OS X, or linux and that is usually for a kernel update or somesuch. My Zaurus has a longer uptime. It really isn't stable.
3. It is both slow and stupid. I grumble at the few times I get the SPoD on Mac OS X or if something won't release focus under X. (BTW, Mac OS X got this wrong, when I click iconify, the WM should do it and tell the process, not just ask the process to iconify, but most Mac apps put this event on the fast track). Usually when I try minimizing a windows process, it won't until it wakes up and I can actually use it. If an app is going to ignore my (other) input for over 5-10 seconds, it should let me iconify it immediately.
I've had lots of wierd and unexplainable "freezes" under Windows - response becomes very slow, then it may or may not get better. Sometimes it is as simple as a loose network cable (Why can't Windows multitask?)
4. When something does go wrong on Linux, I can usually diagnose it (lsof, strace, ltrace if nothing else). Windows will develop problems and I have no idea what went bad. Bad linux configurations are fixable. Bad windows configurations usually means reloading everything from scratch. I lent a Knoppix CD for a coworker to recover his files on an unbootable 98 system.
5. Mal/Spy/Ad/Evil-ware. The same thing that makes windows hard to fix makes Linux and Mac OS X hard to forcibly corrupt and the detection and repair is easier. You could write spyware or a virus, but...
I was just interrupted. A coworker was having a potential virus problem...
it would be too difficult to write an effective virus even in a Mac monoculture.
http://roadmap.digitalomaha.net/
.zip archive if needed, process it into my database, then generate the shape files - collected polygons and chains (my internal format - I need to conserve space and add speed hints for my Zaurus) and plot them in PDF or Qt, the latter you can pan and zoom. The polygons work fine in PDF, but I haven't yet figured out a "good" way in Qt to do the island in a lake. It isn't that difficult, and the Tiger format is well documented.
It parses Tiger data and uses either GTK (1 or 2) or Qt.
Roadmap includes street and address lookup.
The graphics aren't quite there (it doesn't handle polygons well though you get the outlines, nor cities), but it works well, and fast enough to do a moving map on a Zaurus.
It was easy for me to link it to Kismet so I can see APs by signal and channel popup on the moving map.
Tiger does have a 300 page document that explains the format, but there are problems. I've been trying my hand since roadmap development seems stalled.
1. The "polygons" are sometimes disjoint. For example, a lake with an island in the middle will have two loops to form a donut/annulus shape. This doesn't bother things like PDF or postscript (where you can do more than one moveto between fills - just plot all the boundaries and even/odd fill algorithm works out). Something like Qt with just a single chain of segments needs to play masking or XOR games.
The segments the polygons are composed of are also not organized so you must read them all and sort them (endpoint to matching start point) into their several loops.
2. The street types aren't accurate. Some 7 lane roads have the same coding as a two lane barely paved residential street. Also, there is no consistency for things like names of state roads (state road 20, state route 20, il 20, illinois 20, ill 20, M-20 (michigan), M 20...).
3. The normal "polygon" is a census tract, so a large city may be a mosaic of thousands. There are easy algorithms to find a boundary and create the larger polygons, but you do have to transform the data.
4. There are zero-size features for some "chains" (series of line segments). I.e. a polyline with only a start and end point, and both are the same.
There are probably more hiccups, but I have a program that can automatically fetch the tiger 2003
Back in the 1980s, a programmer named Rodey on BIX (Byte Information eXchange) had a license that prevented "military" use. There was much debate back then, but my thought was that software should not be part of a political debate. I think Apple had an anti-nuclear clause in their license back then.
This is worse than the BSD advertisement. Now will each driver or filesystem contain restrictions so it can't be used for the military, or to promote or fight againt abortions, or for the GOP or Democrats, or for police agencies, surveillence, or something else?
His quitting can only make Linux worse (if he was doing that much to help to begin with). So he has handed the military a "heckler's veto" - because they might use it (maybe 0.01% of use), he will penalize the rest of the community.
Please, go work for Microsoft.
If the browser and media player are "part of the OS", which was a decision from Bill, not engineers, then a flaw in them is by definition a flaw in the OS (they run as "root").
The second flaw (which they are slowly fixing) is "open unless closed". Nmap a fresh XP install. I almost shrieked and fainted. In this way, windows is far more open - to attacks. UPNP? A dozen other "services" I could not shut off or close (where is lsof -i? And what would break if I shut some of these ports at the source?).
Lindows runs as root (shame on them), but they don't have the second flaw. Someone running evolution isn't going to be able to cause the same problems as someone running outlook. The fine-grained modularity limits what any attachment can do.
For that matter, Mac OS X has been around for quite a while, but features even better ease of use, while keeping all the security design decisions of the typical linux/unix/bsd (Safari and Quicktime are add-ons; ports are closed unless explicitly opened). Where are all the viri and worms?
In fact, good GUI and good security share the same idea - good fundamental design. MS eye-candy (fading menus? Why?) is as badly flawed as their security (MacOSX-window fades showing dock position).
It has everything including international channels.
It has NASA and many tertiary channels (Discovery health, science). College course channels, NGO channels.
There are two times a year the signal goes out for a few minutes per day (because the sun is directly behind the satellite). I've never noticed it though.
A larger dish helps, but you need a really bad storm to weaken the signal to the point of loss - something a very ugly color on the weather map. Snow isn't very bothersome.
I don't have problems, but in spring and fall I tweak the alignment of the dish, and the only other big thing is to keep the path clear - I had a tree grow into the path and reduced the signal - a laser pointer on a protractor with a plumbline helps - the beam was hitting the leaves.
I've had far worse problems with (Comcast) cable, but I'm a long distance from the tap. Also they save money by using cheap coax that doesn't survive weather - the first few feet gets filled with water which becomes ice after a few years and the signal decays. With the center wire hanging down from a long length of cracked coax between the poles they were telling me it would be some high per-hour fee because "It is probably something inside your house".
Even when cleaned/replaced there are channels that still look much better on the dish.
Then there was the defective power supply that killed 2/3 internet packets on a warm day (I actually correlated packet loss with temprature) which took 2 months to find, and I couldn't use my internet during 11am through 8pm most days. Of course they would send the tech out at 10am so there was nothing to show. When I did, they replaced the cable-modem 7 times. They also would insist that I connect something (my iBook) with internet explorer to "prove to them" there was a problem although my linux firewall would show the lost packets. Beyond the 7 modems, every piece of coax and any other thing like couplers or amplifiers for about 1/4 mile toward that booster box was replaced - many twice. They finally replaced that box (which was overheating and adding noise but leaving the carrier or other test signals alone) and it worked. But that was internet.
With cable, plan on being home for several multi-hour periods ("sometime between 1 and 4" which can mean after 5:30 in practice if they come at all) if you need them to do anything. Dish service isn't perfect, but has been far better than cable and I can generally do things myself since I own and can access all the pieces.
First, he seems entirely unaware of RTLinux which is a full speed RT layer that sits below Linux and has the reliable near-zero latency he calls for, and it is a commercial product (with an open source side).
IF you need that hard real-time, it is probably the best solution. The 2.6 kernel might be "soft" real-time, but again, that means quantifying the required latency.
For many things including lots of existing systems you need a smart peripheral or second small processor (like a UART with a FIFO).
Much of the rest is confusion.
First, it is easier to "roll your own" OR buy proprietary? He says that it would be to difficult to look inside the Linux kernel to figure out something (not possible with most proprietary OSes without a big $ source license), buy you can apparently recode the whole easily.
There are places where "roll your own" fits - I typically can do most things in careful interrupt driven events, and foreground (every N milliseconds) and background loops. When you get into task switching or MM, it gets hard.
If you are very limited, e.g. using existing hardware that doesn't have room and can't be upgraded, the proprietary uOSes are probably best. One thing to note - if he is comparing like to like, the proprietary OSes get big when you add things like network stacks and filesystems (which may not have things like journaling - can you scandisk your flash?).
The current "small" platforms run linux fine. ARM and MIPs (think Zaurus and AMD's PDA platform) are well supported, and there is uCLinux. Here again, if you can get beyond a certain hardware threshold, you can find a lot of things available.
His article was titled "The myth of the embeddedLinux TOOLS market". That is probably true in that most people are likely to prefer GCC to something else (or it would be nice if they took the same command line switches instead of having to redo complex compiler invocations just to use the proprietary version). And they would probably prefer to mix and match (use GNU ld and ELF or whatever the Linux target object format is).
But what does that have to do with Linux? Or Windows CE (which isn't doing too well either and has far worse timing and resource problems).
Support? It's there, but harder and probably not at the same level, but a Linux wizard isn't an Embedded wizard, and vice-versa and if you are already being cheap, you aren't going to pay me (who happens to know both spaces) what I'd ask any more than you would buy a support contract.
Let me summarize my perspective (I do embedded for a living).
1. Linux isn't a panacea, but is or can be an acceptable solution for a very wide range of embedded products. The rest fall into the custom or proprietary niches. Linux tends to get better and hardware gets cheaper. It also helps in many things having the desktop and target run the same thing.
2. The free tools (compilers, etc.) aren't broken, so the market for "good" or better tools isn't going to be large. A tool cannot correct a design error (trying to run Linux in 64K which seems to be his example). Specialty tools have a better chance, but not "Our proprietary IDE now can compile the Linux Kernel" type tools.
(Think filesystems - even if you had a "better" filesystem, it would have to be a lot better or have some critical feature for someone to want to pay for it instead of using one of the various systems already there).
3. There are add-ons and products in other areas that have a market - like RT-linux which can be used as-needed. There are prototyping boards and systems that come with Linux preconfigured with most of the configuration work done. There are consulting and support services - if you want or need to pay for them, and are competetive with the proprietary OS.
He is correct with the basis of his article - It isn't easy to sell bottled watter in the rain next to a public fountain. But his criticisms of Linux and of the development process and targets are way off. But he doesn't consider reasons for picking Linux legitimate though the engineers probably did consider things carefully.
No one brought up the 2.4 kernel exploit that hit Debian either...
.mac accounts using Apple's Mail client, and there's Evolution, but these haven't been the vectors for massive mail pandemics, outlook/ie/windows is (aren't the former part of the OS now?).
Microsoft now wants to move to monthly security patches.
Apple has been running at less than this rate with updates to fix individual problems instead of the patch-of-the-day or monthly-mega-patch.
"Linux" (including every mail delivery agent, window manager, office suite, etc.) is probably somewhere in between.
But someone else had it exactly right - Apple and most Linux systems have services TURNED OFF BY DEFAULT. You can't have an exploit run against something that isn't turned on.
There should be a critical mass of
There's lots of Macs, and Linux systems, but they don't have their database servers exposed to allow something like slapper or slammer. It is actually hard to figure out what to kill on a windows system to shut off something you don't need.
Also note the exploit for Mac was an "inside" job - you had to gain access to an internal network and do a few fancy things, not find an IIS connected directly to the internet.
Yes, you can die in a collision in a tank, but it is less likely than in a huge SUV, which is less likely than in a compact car.
No, Apple isn't perfect. Neither is Linux. But they are an order of magnitude better than Windows and still would be if they were the dominant OS - i.e. maybe we would get one bad worm every 5-10 years instead of quarterly to yearly.
First, other emergency vehicles can or should be able to go through red lights. Motorists might not cooperate though since if they see all-red they may treat it as a 4-way stop.
They could however instead flash red and yellow alternately and quickly so that it would mean EXACTLY and ONLY that an emergency vehicle is approaching and ALL ways need to stop to give it right of way.
Gridlock isn't dependent on the traffic lights (remembering various stories about New York where the fire engines were in the middle of a block and it would take 30 minutes to go just over a mile.
I would love to see Feynman science lectures, but I can see Science and many others on the university channels on my Dish network's third feed (the 9400 range).
I would not love to "watch a heated debate" about stem-cell research. It would be better to be enlightened with what can be done with umbilical or adult or other stem cells v.s. embryos (are they even necessary). It is hard to find facts when the players have political or ideological axes to grind and bend or select facts for their view.
If they want "heated" debates, they should do the creation v.s. evolution.
And if I want to watch morality, I can tune in TBN or EWTN (which I do tune into - I don't mean this as an insult, only that such on a "science" channel would be out of context).
The last thing the airwaves need is a secular version of the televangelist. "Save people from ignorance - donate now" while thumping "Atlas Shrugged" on the podium.
If all we get is "We are all going to die from global warming if the ozone hole doesn't get us first (so call your congressman and tell him to double NASAs budget) and we must discard all technology and go back to medieval tech" there is no point.
I would prefer something along the way Scientific American used to be (somewhat over a decade ago when I let my subscription lapse) and not dumbed down, but with enough extra explanation to lift me up to fully understanding the latest in physics, chemistry, astronomy and astrophysics, mathematics, etc. Nothing preachy, just solid information made interesting. And just present the facts - just report, let me decide, to plagiarize the FOX News line.
and over 20 graduated from a seminary.
/.er can discern the difference.
As other posters pointed out, you are very selective with your quotes when you don't wrench one out of context.
The truth is more complex. The founders weren't all deists, yet they were specifically avoiding creating a theocracy or anything near it. Perhaps the best way of putting it is that Government should be concerned with this world, not the next. This was not a problem when government was small and you could go your entire life without contact with it.
As far as national defense, a postal and road system, official weights and measures and definitions for things like property, and a judiciary to settle disputes, there is nothing which has to be involved with religion.
I don't know how I would christianize or muslimize these functions anymore than I could create a hindu oil change different from a shinto one. Either the oil and filter are replaced with new and things are tightened properly or they are not.
At the time of our founders, we had Public schools, not Government schools, but I doubt the average
Ideas like education and feeding the poor and hospitals are religious ideas. An atheist might think they are good (when they aren't preaching survival of the fittest), but having government involved with these (other than in fascist or communist countries) is a recent development.
I believe in separation of church and state. But that means that the Supreme court should get Government out of schools, not "under god" out of the pledge.
And why should atheists "opt-out" of the pledge (to the point of a universal ban) but Christians and others not be able to avoid Orgy-education and "we weren't created, we evolved" evolution classes? Note I am not talking what is right (true) or not, but if the standard is one student's offense at a dogma can ban it I just want it to be applied equally.
Then atheists and christians (and others) can set up and fund their own schools.
Why should government not regulate with and interfere with the internet and web standards and everything else that seem to raise the libertarian hackles when proposed when they regulate all these other things? If you don't want the government on your line, you should not want it in your or your children's school.
has done fairly well, and there are a lot of books available.
Until the DRM is as transparent and prices are as good as the Apple music store, I don't think they they will get much market share.
Right now I often do audiobook rentals. I can even load the CD versions into my iPod and take it with me (and yes, I do delete them after listening).
I don't need another thing to carry around beyond my Zaurus and/or iPod, but most e-books aren't available for my Zaurus (the C760 with the good screen) - and are only available for something I wouldn't use to read them. PDFs aren't the answer until there is an 8.5x11 pda (and pockets to put it in). Not-too-fancy HTML would be best. But theres no place for DRM.
To ask a simple question with the "public trust" model, do the new grids get constructed where the capacity is inadequate, or where a connected politician needs jobs or favors?
Private does NOT mean beholden to shareholders, and even if it were so, somewhere I miss where it is in shareholder's interest to have the stock tank because they are failing to deliver a product and thus aren't profitable.
With public corporations, at least shareholders eventually have to throw out bad management or the company will go bankrupt (e.g. Enron). Government has no such requirement - they just say they need to raise taxes as more money will fix it.
Consider the "Public School" monopoly that regularly produces graduates who are functionally illiterate and innumerate - not everywhere but the point in having universal educaiton is to educate every child and NOT have education be an accident of geography. This is probably more serious than the power grid, has been going on for two decades, and is resolved by homeschooling, private schools, or by those who can afford it moving to a good school district. Bad schools stay bad yet are often the most expensive in terms of tax money per pupil, good schools stay good. So which areas of the country will be reliable and which will have regular blackouts (until the taxpayer coughs up more money and then we will see)?
Not all companies are ailing or mismanged, but I think under your proposal, all would be nationalized.
And I've missed where government has suddenly become magic and creates solutions to engineering problems by waving some kind of magic wand.
Government created the problem by only deregulating part of the grid (the parts Enron gave money to the DNC and RNC to deregulate).
If anyone is old enough or had read, consider the S&L crisis. Risk wasn't deregulated - the FSLIC (now rolled into the FDIC) carried all the risk, but the S&Ls would get all the reward - heads the S&L bigshots win, tails, the taxpayer loses. We have that kind of deregulation in the power industry.
Some places must buy energy from others by law, some can't or must do certain contracts.
In that, either complete regulation or complete deregulation (with proper economic incentives) would be better than the mix we have now.
In a true marketplace I could choose if I wanted to attach to a more expensive supplier that guaranteed 5 sigma uptime, or a cheaper one that might have an occasional blackout. That might be impractical.
Another problem that goes unsolved is environmental/NIMBY. If no one wants electrical power lines across their area, and don't want the generating plants (some nuclear or coal) next to the industrial areas that consume the power, how do we get power from where it is politically acceptable to generate it to where it is used?
That is a place for government and a legitimate use for Eminent domain (instead of where they are declaring nice neighborhoods "blighted" so they can put in an Ikea store). But if they didn't do it under the current system, why would they do it under reregulation?
Maybe if they replaced all the bureaucrats with engineers, government would be able to solve engineering problems. But shifting an engineering problem from the engineering to the political domain doesn't solve it.
Even in the article it says:
Power deregulation--in reality, a change in regulations--went slowly at first. Not until 1998 were utilities, beginning in California, compelled to sell off their generating capacity to independent power producers, such as Enron and Dynergy.
So "deregulation" means privatizing the most profitable aspects so the Enrons who give $$$ to the DNC and RNC can make money, and forcing the other companies to buy from them at extortionate rates. Something similar happened in CA where they could not by law enter into long-term contracts.
We already have socialism in that "no one" is responsible for the blackouts - if there were there would be someone to sue for breach of contract or similar breaks.
There are ways of making the power grid reliable and robust, but simply having a government agency run it has no magic (consider the IRS who admits to a 33% error rate).
Changing an engineering problem to an economic (the semi-regulation) or political (full regulation) will impede any solution.
Even so, we should really try private-enterprise. Penalize failures but let them keep the profits from keeping things inexpensive and reliable.
Just like Dell, and every other supplier does, spend days or weeks stabilizing XP on the platform then image the hard drive...
Linux doesn't need the "spend days stabilizing" part. Things tend to work, and if a few things don't they are easily traceable since the hood isn't welded shut and linux has tools to probe the system state.
I can install a stable Linux system on any computer with any hardware - it tends to work or not work or require one or two tweaks for things like sound (e.g. if the BIOS isn't allocating interrupts right and there is a conflict or starvation of resources).
If they don't take them home, some version of the k12 LTSP project would work so there wouldn't even be a problem switching laptops.
My WXP laptop at work isn't stable - Usually I can get something done after the third reboot.
Installing any Windows OS usually takes over an hour and often doesn't work, or when it does it will crash the first time it sees new hardware. Trivial upgrades become nightmares.
If you are comparing the vendor's "return to original CD wiping out everything" state when you open the box and the OS is already installed v.s. actually using an install disk on a new hard drive, you are just being stupid.
Even NT wasn't that great - my video capture card and audio card could use different interrupts but NT wouldn't so whenever (except once after removing and reinstalling the drivers then rebooting for three hours to see if I could find some order it would accept) I turned on the sound and it would lock up hard. Ctrl-Alt-Del wouldn't work. I couldn't make it work by allocating interrupts manually but this was easy though unnecessary with Linux.
Viri and/or Worms? One wardriver with one infected laptop near one school and Michigan overloads the internet infrastructure. There is enough problem with monoculture in just the OS. Having hundreds of thousands of identical loads all connected together wirelessly is a cause for nightmares.
This could still be a problem on Macs, but they don't do stupid things like giving everyone Admin priviledges or leaving two dozen ports open "just in case someone ever uses them" and makes it impossible to find the service or driver to shut down to close the port.
I will give one thing to Apple because they want WIRELESS networking - they've been doing it longer and so it won't just be the laptop, but the access points and other infrastructure. Otherwise that will also require major investment and I don't know how many people really know how to do wireless infrastructure correctly. Including and especially any security.
And the MS-BSA Goon squad is another problem. They will want a windows license for every cpu, computer (yes, even iMacs if you remember Oregon) and probably an Office and other licenses as well. Compliance costs probably make it not worth it.
Rarely does someone expose their cluelessness in such a public forum. If this is really from the president of SCO, we should all short the stock now.
He keep saying that we are theives and pirates yet still does not enumerate what specifically we were supposed to have stolen or priated.
Nor does he address the issue that the entire body was distributed by SCO under GPL which should negate any claims.
Or to correct one of his sentences: SCO software code was present in software distributed [BY SCO FROM SCO SERVERS] under the GPL. [And this wasn't something up for a week by mistake and pulled].
Does SCO respect the terms of licenses such as the GPL or do they not?
"You stole my car!" "No, you gave it to me, here is the signed title". "That piece of paper doesn't matter! It's still my care until I change my mind back that you should have it".
If he won't say what they are alleging is stolen property, I don't see why anyone from the OpenSource community should cooperate. We don't know that ESR knows the identity of the DoSer, only that enough information was given that he/she was in the community. Show your cards before you ask us to show ours.
He doesn't want to help us police ourselves by removing the offending portions of the Linux kernel (if any) despite numerous and continuous requests to do so. He wants to play the FUD game.
He says we should check the IP to prevent unauthorized transfers. We have done so. If we erred, just show us (of course he still doesn't want to).
It would also help if he were literate enough to read and understand all of Perens' commentary and analysis. The code would not compile so (assuming it was real code) it couldn't be part of any real unix. The parts in question were in sections that were either BSD copyright or where AT&T lost the copyright - far from an admission of guilt and any reading would have made this clear. It sounds like SCO is accusing someone of stealing water by drinking out of a public fountain.
Far from "ignoring or challenging copyright laws", we are the ones asking that the GPL which is based on it is upheld AND again ask to say where we are ignoring or violating it. Desparately asking for precise areas of violation is hardly ignoring or challenging a law.
"Thief!". "what?". "You stole something!" "What do you think I stole?" "I'm not going to tell you but you are still all thieves and liars and probably club baby seals every chance you get...".
Instead of the dozens of paragraphs ranting about how important copyright is, I think it would have been better for all sides if he simply showed a half-dozen examples of code he alledges are stolen.
Instead of rant and counter-rant, how about some facts? Show us the evidence. For that matter, show us the sections of code even if you don't want to show us any evidence.
You want to help the Opensource community deal with copyright - just show us. We will respond faster than you can imagine.
We think we can bear the harsh light of day, but why can't your evidence seem to?
To whom it may concern:
As you are violating the GPL by claiming some of the code you destributed is now covered by your copyright, And as I retain the copyright to a portion of the Linux code you now must license from me, I am submitting this invoice.
Please remit $50,000 for the license to use my code as soon as possible as interest charges will accrue.
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Any other Linux developer want to join in some action to bill SCO for their non-GPL use of our IP?