I must state that I am like most of you and agree that information should be freely availible, especially with regards to technology. However, as much of a good idea as this seems, I doubt it will work.
Firstly, there are many more shareholders out there who are investing in a company to make a profit than there probably are "hackers" on a revolution for free information.
Secondly, even if their ["hackers"] voice is heard, it does not necessarily mean that the other investors will listen. After all, they are trying to protect their investments, and a company is not likely to be worth as much if their stocks drop because they were forced by a "hacker" majority vote to give out their trade secrets with no royalties or licensing.
Its a good article, and sounds like a well thought out plan, but the sad reality is that there are more people in the world that are more interested in their own worth than people interested in freely availible information.
Okay, I made a boo-boo and forgot to state that I was referring to the poster of this article (he's right). And what I meant by ignore (sorry I was pressed for time when I wrote the article) was sure, read the article but not to get pissed off at the person writing the article and send them flames or bombard them numerous negative, non-productive emails (negative, emails that are productive are good however).
Sorry for any misunderstandings, I should've posted after work rather than at the end of my lunch break.
Well if ya think about it though, my K6-2 350 cost me about $280 cndn last year this time. Now I can get the K6-2 450 for $70, so prices are starting to drop very quickly, even more so than five years ago. (And it says in the link that its expected to be released in late 2001). 64 megs of RAM seems kinda small, I mean if they're using a 1GHz processor, the system would probably thrash [hard drive swapping] alot with only 64 megs of ram. Sounds pretty interesting though. Wonder if we'll see a Linux distribution for it eventually.;)
As I have said before in other posts, its time for these Linux users to grow up and realize that yes, Linux is a good operating system and that people can say that Microsoft is better, but they (linux users) don't have to listen to it. Just ignore it. Its like the best solution when you were in school and the big bully was picking on you. Just ignore him/her.
Okay, I'd like to say one thing and make it very clear. I am a very avid user of Linux and use it for anything and everything I do related to computers. The one thing I am getting very tired of hearing lately is all this "Windows is better than Linux" or "Linux is better than Windows" garbage. I mean, come on, its not a black and white world where they are evil and we are good. Each has its own flaws in different areas (some more than others;) but most (note how I say most) of these articles do not go into great detail explaining exactly which areas the operating systems accel or simply suck at. As long as we (Linux community) fire ammunition at Microsoft, they're going to keep firing ammunition back, and they're backed by a lot more money and resources than we are. What I'm saying is that we should just ignore this Microsoft FUD and put an end to this childish "I'm better than you! No you're not, I am!" gibberish.
(This is slightly off topic but I felt thats its gotta be said).
"Would comparing the two operating systems on such old machines be a fair comparison?"
Yes it would. Remeber, software is made for the hardware, not visa versa. (And keep in mind that not all servers are running on an expensive rackmount system of some sort. Many smaller companies simply cannot afford top of the line hardware.)
"How many machines did they test this on?"
As far as I understand they used two machines. However I do think that they should have used more machines in this test to have more accurate results.
This article does leave a lot of unanswered questions but I assume that was done because the test results are copyrighted and you need to pay a fee to have access the results.
The reason why less people are using it and the traffic is increasing is because of all this spam advertising useless stuff, usually webpages that don't work, or because of the number of people that post insignificant comments such as quoting someone's whole post and adding "I agree" or some such thing to the end of it.
Actually I think that NASA is funding this because the research will help them out alot with their planned mission (not sure if its officially planned but they've been saying they'd like to do it) to Jupiter's moon Europa. They want to employ some sort of underwater autonomus vehicle to break through the icy surface of the frozen moon because they think that there may be oceans down there that might contain life (I doubt it but its worth a shot and at least they'll come up with important research as to what lies beneath the moon's crust).
Okay, tell me if I'm wrong but it seems society is again falling into the cracks of the system where the big guys have absolute control, and if you do anything to oppose them (intellectually, verbally, etc.) you will be persecuted. This time instead of the church and state being the ones to persecute you it is the large mega-corporations, trying to protect their greedy systems. I hope something changes so that history does not repeat itself.
"it may be especially hard for Kevin because he isn't allowed to use computers" Okay, now can someone please tell me just how the heck they're going to enforce this? I mean, what is someone going to follow him around every moment of his life to make sure he doesn't touch a computer? Give the guy a break, he's served his time, let him have back his freedom of using technology.
Hello, just thought I'd like to mention, if you're in Canada, a very good alternative to @home is Bell's Sympatico High Speed service, it uses the Nortel 1Meg xDSL modems and I've had very good service for a reasonable cost ($39.95).
Its all part of the government's new budget strategy. Confiscate listning devices, computer equipment, etc and you don't have to spend as much to supply all those three letter orginizations.:)
Interesting article, though like another reader I disagree with the electric hand dryer. One that perhaps should have been included though is the internal combustion engine. Without that many things today would not be possible (automobiles, trains, planes, electrical generators, etc.) How about a slashdot poll to see what people think should be the number one gadget of all time.
You might be interested in Corel's distribution of linux. It is using a modified Debian distribution and is being designed to be user friendly enough for someone to fairly easily switch from windows or mac to linux. Their goal (as quoted from one of the guys at Corel I was talking to) is "To make linux easy enough for my mother to use it."
For one thing, I do not agree with the higher version numbers (ie, windows 2000, etc) but you must credit these companies for their marketing techniques, higher version numbers bring in more customers who are not very technically oriented. Personally I think they should stick by the "major/minor/patchlevel" versioning as it gives a much better view of how far along the product is in development, but thats just my opinion.
Slashdot Mirror
I must state that I am like most of you and agree that information should be freely availible, especially with regards to technology. However, as much of a good idea as this seems, I doubt it will work.
Firstly, there are many more shareholders out there who are investing in a company to make a profit than there probably are "hackers" on a revolution for free information.
Secondly, even if their ["hackers"] voice is heard, it does not necessarily mean that the other investors will listen. After all, they are trying to protect their investments, and a company is not likely to be worth as much if their stocks drop because they were forced by a "hacker" majority vote to give out their trade secrets with no royalties or licensing.
Its a good article, and sounds like a well thought out plan, but the sad reality is that there are more people in the world that are more interested in their own worth than people interested in freely availible information.
Okay, I made a boo-boo and forgot to state that I was referring to the poster of this article (he's right). And what I meant by ignore (sorry I was pressed for time when I wrote the article) was sure, read the article but not to get pissed off at the person writing the article and send them flames or bombard them numerous negative, non-productive emails (negative, emails that are productive are good however).
Sorry for any misunderstandings, I should've posted after work rather than at the end of my lunch break.
Well if ya think about it though, my K6-2 350 cost me about $280 cndn last year this time. Now I can get the K6-2 450 for $70, so prices are starting to drop very quickly, even more so than five years ago. (And it says in the link that its expected to be released in late 2001). 64 megs of RAM seems kinda small, I mean if they're using a 1GHz processor, the system would probably thrash [hard drive swapping] alot with only 64 megs of ram. Sounds pretty interesting though. Wonder if we'll see a Linux distribution for it eventually. ;)
As I have said before in other posts, its time for these Linux users to grow up and realize that yes, Linux is a good operating system and that people can say that Microsoft is better, but they (linux users) don't have to listen to it. Just ignore it. Its like the best solution when you were in school and the big bully was picking on you. Just ignore him/her.
Okay, I'd like to say one thing and make it very clear. I am a very avid user of Linux and use it for anything and everything I do related to computers. The one thing I am getting very tired of hearing lately is all this "Windows is better than Linux" or "Linux is better than Windows" garbage. I mean, come on, its not a black and white world where they are evil and we are good. Each has its own flaws in different areas (some more than others ;) but most (note how I say most) of these articles do not go into great detail explaining exactly which areas the operating systems accel or simply suck at. As long as we (Linux community) fire ammunition at Microsoft, they're going to keep firing ammunition back, and they're backed by a lot more money and resources than we are. What I'm saying is that we should just ignore this Microsoft FUD and put an end to this childish "I'm better than you! No you're not, I am!" gibberish.
(This is slightly off topic but I felt thats its gotta be said).
"Would comparing the two operating systems on such old machines be a fair comparison?"
Yes it would. Remeber, software is made for the hardware, not visa versa. (And keep in mind that not all servers are running on an expensive rackmount system of some sort. Many smaller companies simply cannot afford top of the line hardware.)
"How many machines did they test this on?"
As far as I understand they used two machines. However I do think that they should have used more machines in this test to have more accurate results.
This article does leave a lot of unanswered questions but I assume that was done because the test results are copyrighted and you need to pay a fee to have access the results.
The reason why less people are using it and the traffic is increasing is because of all this spam advertising useless stuff, usually webpages that don't work, or because of the number of people that post insignificant comments such as quoting someone's whole post and adding "I agree" or some such thing to the end of it.
Actually I think that NASA is funding this because the research will help them out alot with their planned mission (not sure if its officially planned but they've been saying they'd like to do it) to Jupiter's moon Europa. They want to employ some sort of underwater autonomus vehicle to break through the icy surface of the frozen moon because they think that there may be oceans down there that might contain life (I doubt it but its worth a shot and at least they'll come up with important research as to what lies beneath the moon's crust).
Okay, tell me if I'm wrong but it seems society is again falling into the cracks of the system where the big guys have absolute control, and if you do anything to oppose them (intellectually, verbally, etc.) you will be persecuted. This time instead of the church and state being the ones to persecute you it is the large mega-corporations, trying to protect their greedy systems. I hope something changes so that history does not repeat itself.
"it may be especially hard for Kevin because he isn't allowed to use computers" Okay, now can someone please tell me just how the heck they're going to enforce this? I mean, what is someone going to follow him around every moment of his life to make sure he doesn't touch a computer? Give the guy a break, he's served his time, let him have back his freedom of using technology.
Hey, I know some pretty hot chicks that are really into guys like Stephen Hawking!
(kidding)
Hello, just thought I'd like to mention, if you're in Canada, a very good alternative to @home is Bell's Sympatico High Speed service, it uses the Nortel 1Meg xDSL modems and I've had very good service for a reasonable cost ($39.95).
Its all part of the government's new budget strategy. Confiscate listning devices, computer equipment, etc and you don't have to spend as much to supply all those three letter orginizations. :)
Interesting article, though like another reader I disagree with the electric hand dryer. One that perhaps should have been included though is the internal combustion engine. Without that many things today would not be possible (automobiles, trains, planes, electrical generators, etc.) How about a slashdot poll to see what people think should be the number one gadget of all time.
You might be interested in Corel's distribution of linux. It is using a modified Debian distribution and is being designed to be user friendly enough for someone to fairly easily switch from windows or mac to linux. Their goal (as quoted from one of the guys at Corel I was talking to) is "To make linux easy enough for my mother to use it."
For one thing, I do not agree with the higher version numbers (ie, windows 2000, etc) but you must credit these companies for their marketing techniques, higher version numbers bring in more customers who are not very technically oriented. Personally I think they should stick by the "major/minor/patchlevel" versioning as it gives a much better view of how far along the product is in development, but thats just my opinion.