I understand what GNU, GPL, and RMS is... but what I also understand is that as the leader of GNU, RMS does say and make decisions that reflect right back on the GNU community.
To quote a/. sig "GNU is like sex, better when RMS isn't involved." Many people embrace the open source movement and I myself am one of them, all of my public binaries I've ever made are open source, they happen to be GPL because it seemed like the best at the time. Reall I believe in the "I don't really care what you do with the code, but here it is anyways", which seems to be the model of the BSD license (in a very naive sorta way).
GNU would be a whole lot of nothing without linux, that's a fact... Linux would also be a whole lot of nothing without GNU, that's a fact, but is Mandrake a GNU OS? No... is Debian HURD a GNU OS? Maybe...
It's all a matter of politics and politics seem to scare people morst of the time, FSF and GNU are the same thing I don't care what you or an essay says. Why are they the same thing, they both have the same leader. And yes because of that they are the same thing. GNU is an idea, but it is made through the people behind it... without the supporters of GNU there would be no GNU so GNU is the people behind it.
This is like arguing whether a hacker is someone who intrudes in a system or someone who writes code. Granted every geek will tell you NO that's a script kiddie, but it wasn't until the word script kiddie was made that people started to defend the word hacker.
I wouldn't be so defensive, but being told I don't understand the GNU, GPL, FSF, or Linux tends to piss me off a bit when I have had contact with major players of all those fronts. So my posts reflect words straight from the horses mouth.
Ohhh... so I suppose all those tools were developed on HURD the whole time... considering until... oh 2 years ago... hurd was an IDEA...
And they were developed for linux... not for HURD... maybe if you want to feel all fuzzy thinking about GNU before you go to bed tonight... then... aight... night
Dude... I couldn't help but notice your sarcasm:-).
But I think quite a few people agree with you, I have been reading the comments and noticed the same.
Hurd has potential, but right now there is absolutely no reason to switch from linux, sides the only difference between Hurd OS and Debian Linux is the kernel... both have apt:-)
Hey - a sensible, moderate reply to an idiotic post - somebody mod up the AC:-)
I suppose because I don't like the entire GNU communistic philosophy and don't agree with stallman on just about everything... that makes me an idiot.
I didn't take the time to reply because it was an AC post, but since yours wasn't I guess I will make it a point to reply.
GNU is more than just a license and is more than just a way of thinking. GNU is about freedom. I think we also need to get a little something straight... the GNU is much more than stallman, but for every great group everyone looks to the man on top, and in this case it happens to be stallman.
Americans and many other parts of the world live in a captilastic society, the only ones who whine about this are the ones that don't make the money. I have yet to hear a rich man complain about having too much money. Second if everything was free then there would be no driving force for innovation or success. The main reason communism fell, no reason to do more than the status-quo and even more reason to do less.
I'm going to take Eli's Cheesecake. I like Eli's cheesecake, but because I don't have the receipe I can't make my own so I have to go and buy Eli's or settle for something else. But Eli's is the best in my mind and I will stand for only Eli's. Now Eli's has a receipe that they themselves came up with, if they were an open source cheesecake company someone would take the receipe and make the cheesecake cheaper without taking anytime to create the perfect cheesecake. So why would I complain I would be getting the same great cheesecake for a lot less money, but where does that leave Eli's? The inventor is now screwed because he wanted to give back... and at what cost he no longer has a business anymore because everyone and their brother is making the same product for less money.
Innovation dies, because now the receipe is out and there is no driving force to create a better cheesecake when there's already a working product to sell...
So that's the open source aspect... now lets hit the GNU aspect. If Eli's were to have licesened their receipe code under the Nabisco licesnse (which happens to have many fine products as well)... would the product then be called the Nabisco Eli's Cheesecake? Well if you want to see things like RMS then... yes... it is now Nabisco Eli Cheesecake... or NEC...:-)...
That's where I stand and that's what I believe. For things that people take the time to work on for the sole purpose of helping others out, then the world embraces the open source and elaborates on it. If it's a product that is new to the world and has a use for everyone then so be it... the source stays closed and people make money...
The argument that you can't make money off of opensource is a correct argument in essence.
no trademarks were harmed in this comment
Re:not BSD ... but BFD ...
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Hurd: H2 CD Images
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· Score: 4, Insightful
The idea is not that GNU is bad, just askewed in their views. I would be willing to bet that 95% of the people who write GPL software, myself included, would not agree with stallman. Then there's the debate of putting GNU on everything... why... GNU doesn't own it... the author owns it... and unless GNU wants to pay for my life like it does stallman... my software won't be GNU... it will however follow the GPL license... well that is... until I make it BSD code:-)..
Everytime someone mentions Anti-GNU
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Hurd: H2 CD Images
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· Score: 0, Offtopic
I am really getting tire of everytime there's a comment about RMS or GNU that isn't all nice and pretty. And the comment is sent to the wonderous 0 world. If you don't believe me... go browse at Zero.
I think slashdot readers agree that not everything posted on slashdot is something everyone agrees with and I think A LOT of people aren't all for FSF or GNU... why because they're politics don't match that of the other party.
Just tired of seeing EVERYONE who doesn't like GNU get bashed for it... that's the joy of being an American... not only can you _have_ your opinion, but you can voice it too. Not everyone has to agree with you though.
Okay... It my be the fact that I don't see eye to eye with RMS... or the fact that there are already many tools out there that do the same thing.
Micro-Kernel Unix is NOT a new idea... in fact m68kppc linux distro for the apples was in fact a mach kernel linux distro.
Security... yeah... because no one uses it for anything mission critical and no one has gone in to take a look at what all _can_ go wrong yet.
Linux, BSD, Other FreeOS's... There's already a mass market out there of free operating systems the Hurd is only a GNU stunt to put GNU on yet another thing and managed to get enough people to work on it so that GNU can once and for all dump linux.
The only problem with dumping linux... would be that without linux there wouldn't be ANY GNU hype... sure people would know about it, but no one would care. It's linux that brought GNU to this level and I think that linux should be respected... not yelled at because it doesn't have GNU in front of it. And why isn't it GNU Linux? Simple... GNU wants hurd... not linux...
94 meg's for an entire distro... I mean really... what more can you ask for... it's as bare bones as you can get and not suffer from functionality for a workstation...
I think everyone here fails to realize that the world needs janitors and waste engineers. Fast food used to be a joke job, but basically anyone age 16 - 25 has that market cornered. Unions need workers and skilled labor needs workers.
Problem: Americans DO NOT want to make enough money... they want more money than anyone else out there and they have a need to succeed. Everyone wants to be the next Bill Gates, but no one will ever get that close... you know why? Because while everyone wants to be Bill Gates everyone also wants no one else to be Bill Gates other than them. GUESS WHAT!!! Bill Gates is the only Bill Gates... get over it... I can safely say that most everyone at/. won't have to worry this tax season about having to calculate 10 number holding positions... that's a billion for you people who don't get the joke...
Why am I so defensive? Well because I have 50 karma points and can't go any higher...:-)...
But in all reality a degree is a way to get your feet wet... if you don't talk to people at school, go to job fairs, or get an internship... you might as well just drop out now... because you've done yourself an injustice. You don't need a degree in life, but it sure does help.
First off... if you want small and fast... Try peanut linux... Website or ISO's. "Just 99 Mb of data contain this already pre-software configured OS with a spectacular GUI for the most versatile operating system available today!. - Quoted from their page.
Now for older boxen... the best way to make them efficient is to follow the Keep It Simple Silly method of making a working box. Win95-Lite was made for this exact reason... but that's just if you want win95...
For linux I would have to recommend Slackware or Debian... after a base install you have very little bloat and very few apps that you won't need. Apt makes it real nice to find and install, but slack also has a decent package list to choose from.
You may also want to look into the BSD's... all of them have a very bland base install and all of them run the latest greatest stuff.
Along with being so great all of these (except slack) offer net installs, so all you need is a disk drive to boot the things up... so if the CD has crapped out (which it has on many old computers) you can still do a full install on the net.
People are saying FVWM or other things like that... SawFish and BlackBox were made to be VERY lightweight window managers and like windowmaker are very customizable and since they are so small... they take up a very small memory foot print.
The thing would also make a cool Home Server, Make it into a router, webserver, email server, and file server... perfect...
Lastly... you could set it up with a VNC client and use it that way as a terminal system. I think the one thing that needs to be realized is that old boxes are far from useless.
Acutal BBC article...
Anyone here ever used AirPhones?? yeah... well I see this as being a great way to drop a good $40 on a plane ride for the ability to look at pr0n and check email... plus who's going to give tech support?
Though it would be cool to join the "Downloaded and recompiled my kernel mile high" club... Personally terrorism or not... I can't stand to be in a plane more than an hour... but this would be nice...
I don't see this being in coach at all... but it is nice to see that you can feel more comfortable when traveling... to save on installation problems... using 802.11 would be the best way to go... and with everything popping up with 802.11 it's about time for notebook users to grab a card anyways...
So you would rather use a pen and paper over a word processor?... I used wordpad for the longest time because I was against software piracy... it wasn't until I was handed a copy of word perfect that I actually began to spell check without retyping.
The software was handed to me... not copied... the person was upgrading and had no reason to keep around the old copy. I was so interested in computers that I would get hand me-downs... I used a 486 until 1997...
So it's not always the spoiled brats... it was the fact that A.) I didn't know at the time you could get software without buying it... and B.) My father raised me to respect other peoples things and that stealing was wrong.
That did kinda wear off through highschool... but hey:-)
ask ANY kid with a computer about copyrights and if piracy is illegal. I'll even do one up for ya.. ask any kid in college. Okay... now as you're asking them... go ahead and look at their CD collection, yup... there's alot of "back-ups" there.
I think that most of the "pirates" know more about the illegalities of what they're doing more than the actual people aresting them. In fact I would bet my legal software on it.
Now comes the question of why is Piracy so big? Well why is drug use and prostitution so big? Well they make people feel good (not endorsing either, but lets face it... coke heads like the feeling they get from stuffing their nostrils with coke)... Getting something for free has always made people feel good about themselves.
Let's figure in the MS-Factor... MS makes most of it's money from site licenses and OEM's... they don't make their money from off the shelf Operating Systems. Now their games and apps, yessir they pay for all those. According to MS Though you _can_ have a the same copy of Office and Windows at home and office... so long as you don't use the computers at the same time (which is technically physically impossible)... But MS does make games and I will admit that I know of people "stealing" from MS everyday. Do I think that they're criminals? Hell no... I blame the MS for making a standard that is used in schools and accepted in the office that we are taxed for in our homes for compatability issues.
Now lets throw in the OSS factor. Of course OSS doesn't have to worry about piracy, hell they ask people to share (dumb bastards *note the previous comment was meant to poke fun as a person who is coming from the stance of microsoft*). So what's the solution, THERE ISN'T ONE
So why is it so big??? Well it's promoted. You think someone would buy an Apex DVD player that reads CD-R's because they thought it would look better on their shelf system? Hell no... they bought it so they could play VCD's on the thing. You think they bought their 12x burner because they wanted to make compilation CD's from CD's they already owned? No they wanted to copy CD's, make Audio CD's, and VCD's. You think that they got broadband to download on the web faster... lol... NO... they got it for that wonderous P2P that is out there to make things easier for those floating in the dangerous seas.
All in all... and in a nutshell... piracy won't stop... there will never be an end... if everyone who was a software pirate were arrested then 80% of america would be sitting in a jail cell right now... because we've all "stole from the man".
The whole point of broadband is _not_ to download websites faster. The entire point of broadband is to have a fast connection to the internet. What the hell would a fast connection be good for unless you wanted to use p2p or other networking apps?
Seriously, Normal webbrowsing, chatting, and email can be done flawlessly with a 56K modem. All the other things that people do with the internet use broadband.
Send your parents a X-Mas video as an email attachment. Well Hell that alone is going to be 10 - 100 megs (depends how stupid you are about compressiong *grin*). Then there's getting that X-Mas music to pop into the background... yup gunna pull out my p2p to grab a copy of crosby's jingle bells... why... well because I know somewhere downstairs I have it sitting on record somewhere that I bought in a stack of records for $5 at a garage sale.
So that's a decent point. I have yet to see a real legal reason for broadband.... and you know what??? it's all that bad illegal stuff that makes broadband sell. You really think ads about how you can see a webpage faster make joe-surfer-internet want to pay between 2 - 4 times more for the internet? Hell no... it's seeing the neighbors with their new CD-Burner making mix CD's in a matter of minutes via KaZaa (or whatever) then burning it to a $.50 CD-R and bragging about how you just paid $13 for what they paid $.50 for...
Then there's open source funness. Are you going to run out and buy the latest greatest $80 copy of redhat when you can pop over to linuxiso.org and just burn a copy??? We're talking $2.00 for the three CD set (and I'm counting the sticky labels as well)...
Broadband was made for downloads to be fast...
Then there's gaming... When I'm playing Q3 on the net... do you really think I'll settle for anything more than a 45 PING??? ohhh hell no... and do you think that me playing on the uberfast server doesn't take up bandwidth? OF COURSE IT DOES... but you know what... that's what I'm forking $52 out a month for... the ability to do just that...
So in all seriousness... if you don't like broadband... go to your 56K modem and leave us all alone... because we waited for the day of 2 mb/s downloads... and now that the day is here... we consider that a right... a right that we will fight to keep...
Ummm... not to be rude... but they have no say on the firewalls... the reason they don't want to allow them... is because you can then easily disable spyware they've installed... and also by using a router you don't need to purchase extra IP's from them...
Well Charter Cable customers now have the wonderous Tioga spyware installed on their systems. It's been posted to slashdot a few times and been rejected. Members from the MadLug (Madison, WI). Have noted that the new service listens on a specific port to monitor and "Assist" The county board is also investigating this.
The software is supposed to be a VNC-Type program that helps Service Reps service computers. Basically I see this as a way for them to not only monitor, but have their way with your system. Along with this software also comes a real annoying Internet Explorer with Charter MSN crap everywhere, diabling network shares, and reformating TCP/IP to their network. Basically everything you can do yourself, but they won't tell you because they want you to install their software.
The whole thing stinks and the company is hiding behind lawyers and PR reps to try and get the whole situation worked out. Basically they released a new service, and the MadLUG guys were on them in 2 days when they noticed weird activity.
Moral of the story... don't screw with geeks... we'll find you... we know who you are:-)
I really am trying to find a good reason to even keep netscape on my box anymore. If there were just a good repository of plugins Mozilla would be the best damned browser available... I would compare it to Netscape, but it has obviously surpassed netscape so I will compare it to the next best thing. I think it definantelly holds its weight against IE... In fact with all the new integration... I think it beats IE... all we need are the plugins... and we're set... at least crossover has started to help..
Re:Has everyone forgotten the Dec 25 Birthday?
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Christmas is Coming
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· Score: 5, Funny
That's right... And by golly people... we need to go back to our churches, and our religious leaders, because we've forgotten what christmas is really all about!!!
In all honesty this is a bit of overkill... and I would like to quote this site from http://words.mg2.org/
(It's since been over posted... but I'll quote what I remember)
TRAGIC EPIDEMIC STRIKES NATION!:
It has come to our attention that there is a huge epedimic crossing the entire nation that strikes right after Thanksgiving and can last till almost Labor Day in some cases.
No know cure for this disease has been found yet, but researchers are working hard everyday to try and find a cure.
The name of this epidemic is "Turning your house into a mini godamned Las Vegas", and can be found everywhere.
I dunno... I thought it was funny, but I also just got done stringing 4,000 bulbs for my family... erm... better go to the doctor I guess.
Turbo Linux sent us some free CD's and it was very nice of them, but the text-based installer is rather horrid and their post-install setup is less than would be desired.
Mandrake and RedHat also sent us CD's, They were nice but also installed Gnome and KDE along with other huge apps that an average user wouldn't know what they were let alone ever use them.
Personally I would like to see Turbo up and going again, but I haven't heard anything positive coming out of it besides it's huge market-share in asia.
EX. Connect to ANY major IRC server and pop into #Linux and Ask a question "How do I rename a file"... if you are kicked, you are told RTFM. But low-and-behold a man rename... or help rename doesn't HAVE and information.
There is quite a problem with the active linux users thinking that they are almighty and superior. Personally I use both windows and linux and I have no problem answering questions for either OS. Both are a complete pain in the ass to use.
If you have a problem with windows, you can call up your neighborhood 14 year old and get the problem fixed with a pepsi, if you have a problem with linux... you can _try_ to get a support package or find a local lug to help you out, but that's not as conforting.
The only thing keeping Linux alive right now is LUG's and their support for newbies. I have found that even inside LUG's you will find the egotistical types who want the user to "Learn on their own". My only problem with telling them to learn on their own is the simple fact that if they're question is "I don't have man pages installed what do I do"... and you answer RTFM... you just lost another linux user and their influence on other users.
For every one user you convert to linux... they will convert three more... it works for drugs and religions... so be it... it will work for linux.
You can't help but know that Microsoft and the Department of Justice (plus several of the states that joined in the suit) are attempting to settle their antitrust dispute.
If we can't help to know then WHY are you posting it??... hmmm?
settlement before a Senate committee, which was crippled by political maneuvering (see also the NYT story).
Seriously... do you know ANYTHING about politics?... it's what makes america drive and move... the ability to manipulate people to get what you want. Sorta like how somehow you're able to manipulate people to let you stay at/.
Linuxplanet has some advice for people who want to comment on the settlement - you've got 60 days from November 28.
Ummm I do believe this particular subject will be commented on for the next 20 years. Anyone remember when Standard Oil broke up?... yeah I do too...
Michael I am very sorry to be coming at you so strongly, but your articles are pure bullshit... You state facts then go into opinion that has no basis behind it.
Moderators - This is not a Troll or Flame... I AM commenting on the story.
Slashdot Mirror
To quote a /. sig "GNU is like sex, better when RMS isn't involved." Many people embrace the open source movement and I myself am one of them, all of my public binaries I've ever made are open source, they happen to be GPL because it seemed like the best at the time. Reall I believe in the "I don't really care what you do with the code, but here it is anyways", which seems to be the model of the BSD license (in a very naive sorta way).
GNU would be a whole lot of nothing without linux, that's a fact ... Linux would also be a whole lot of nothing without GNU, that's a fact, but is Mandrake a GNU OS? No ... is Debian HURD a GNU OS? Maybe ...
It's all a matter of politics and politics seem to scare people morst of the time, FSF and GNU are the same thing I don't care what you or an essay says. Why are they the same thing, they both have the same leader. And yes because of that they are the same thing. GNU is an idea, but it is made through the people behind it ... without the supporters of GNU there would be no GNU so GNU is the people behind it.
This is like arguing whether a hacker is someone who intrudes in a system or someone who writes code. Granted every geek will tell you NO that's a script kiddie, but it wasn't until the word script kiddie was made that people started to defend the word hacker.
I wouldn't be so defensive, but being told I don't understand the GNU, GPL, FSF, or Linux tends to piss me off a bit when I have had contact with major players of all those fronts. So my posts reflect words straight from the horses mouth.
do you really follow your AC posts ... geeze ....
And they were developed for linux ... not for HURD ... maybe if you want to feel all fuzzy thinking about GNU before you go to bed tonight ... then ... aight ... night
But I think quite a few people agree with you, I have been reading the comments and noticed the same.
Hurd has potential, but right now there is absolutely no reason to switch from linux, sides the only difference between Hurd OS and Debian Linux is the kernel ... both have apt :-)
I suppose because I don't like the entire GNU communistic philosophy and don't agree with stallman on just about everything... that makes me an idiot.
I didn't take the time to reply because it was an AC post, but since yours wasn't I guess I will make it a point to reply.
GNU is more than just a license and is more than just a way of thinking. GNU is about freedom. I think we also need to get a little something straight ... the GNU is much more than stallman, but for every great group everyone looks to the man on top, and in this case it happens to be stallman.
Americans and many other parts of the world live in a captilastic society, the only ones who whine about this are the ones that don't make the money. I have yet to hear a rich man complain about having too much money. Second if everything was free then there would be no driving force for innovation or success. The main reason communism fell, no reason to do more than the status-quo and even more reason to do less.
I'm going to take Eli's Cheesecake. I like Eli's cheesecake, but because I don't have the receipe I can't make my own so I have to go and buy Eli's or settle for something else. But Eli's is the best in my mind and I will stand for only Eli's. Now Eli's has a receipe that they themselves came up with, if they were an open source cheesecake company someone would take the receipe and make the cheesecake cheaper without taking anytime to create the perfect cheesecake. So why would I complain I would be getting the same great cheesecake for a lot less money, but where does that leave Eli's? The inventor is now screwed because he wanted to give back ... and at what cost he no longer has a business anymore because everyone and their brother is making the same product for less money.
Innovation dies, because now the receipe is out and there is no driving force to create a better cheesecake when there's already a working product to sell ...
So that's the open source aspect ... now lets hit the GNU aspect. If Eli's were to have licesened their receipe code under the Nabisco licesnse (which happens to have many fine products as well) ... would the product then be called the Nabisco Eli's Cheesecake? Well if you want to see things like RMS then ... yes ... it is now Nabisco Eli Cheesecake ... or NEC ... :-) ...
That's where I stand and that's what I believe. For things that people take the time to work on for the sole purpose of helping others out, then the world embraces the open source and elaborates on it. If it's a product that is new to the world and has a use for everyone then so be it ... the source stays closed and people make money ...
The argument that you can't make money off of opensource is a correct argument in essence.
no trademarks were harmed in this comment
I think slashdot readers agree that not everything posted on slashdot is something everyone agrees with and I think A LOT of people aren't all for FSF or GNU ... why because they're politics don't match that of the other party.
Just tired of seeing EVERYONE who doesn't like GNU get bashed for it ... that's the joy of being an American ... not only can you _have_ your opinion, but you can voice it too. Not everyone has to agree with you though.
Micro-Kernel Unix is NOT a new idea ... in fact m68kppc linux distro for the apples was in fact a mach kernel linux distro.
Security ... yeah ... because no one uses it for anything mission critical and no one has gone in to take a look at what all _can_ go wrong yet.
Linux, BSD, Other FreeOS's ... There's already a mass market out there of free operating systems the Hurd is only a GNU stunt to put GNU on yet another thing and managed to get enough people to work on it so that GNU can once and for all dump linux.
The only problem with dumping linux ... would be that without linux there wouldn't be ANY GNU hype ... sure people would know about it, but no one would care. It's linux that brought GNU to this level and I think that linux should be respected ... not yelled at because it doesn't have GNU in front of it. And why isn't it GNU Linux? Simple ... GNU wants hurd ... not linux ...
So HURD has CD-Images ... BFD ...
Problem: Americans DO NOT want to make enough money ... they want more money than anyone else out there and they have a need to succeed. Everyone wants to be the next Bill Gates, but no one will ever get that close ... you know why? Because while everyone wants to be Bill Gates everyone also wants no one else to be Bill Gates other than them. GUESS WHAT!!! Bill Gates is the only Bill Gates ... get over it ... I can safely say that most everyone at /. won't have to worry this tax season about having to calculate 10 number holding positions ... that's a billion for you people who don't get the joke ...
Why am I so defensive? Well because I have 50 karma points and can't go any higher ... :-) ...
But in all reality a degree is a way to get your feet wet ... if you don't talk to people at school, go to job fairs, or get an internship ... you might as well just drop out now ... because you've done yourself an injustice. You don't need a degree in life, but it sure does help.
Now for older boxen ... the best way to make them efficient is to follow the Keep It Simple Silly method of making a working box. Win95-Lite was made for this exact reason ... but that's just if you want win95 ...
For linux I would have to recommend Slackware or Debian ... after a base install you have very little bloat and very few apps that you won't need. Apt makes it real nice to find and install, but slack also has a decent package list to choose from.
You may also want to look into the BSD's ... all of them have a very bland base install and all of them run the latest greatest stuff.
Along with being so great all of these (except slack) offer net installs, so all you need is a disk drive to boot the things up ... so if the CD has crapped out (which it has on many old computers) you can still do a full install on the net.
People are saying FVWM or other things like that ... SawFish and BlackBox were made to be VERY lightweight window managers and like windowmaker are very customizable and since they are so small ... they take up a very small memory foot print.
The thing would also make a cool Home Server, Make it into a router, webserver, email server, and file server ... perfect ...
Lastly ... you could set it up with a VNC client and use it that way as a terminal system. I think the one thing that needs to be realized is that old boxes are far from useless.
Though it would be cool to join the "Downloaded and recompiled my kernel mile high" club ... Personally terrorism or not ... I can't stand to be in a plane more than an hour ... but this would be nice ...
I don't see this being in coach at all ... but it is nice to see that you can feel more comfortable when traveling ... to save on installation problems ... using 802.11 would be the best way to go ... and with everything popping up with 802.11 it's about time for notebook users to grab a card anyways ...
The software was handed to me ... not copied ... the person was upgrading and had no reason to keep around the old copy. I was so interested in computers that I would get hand me-downs ... I used a 486 until 1997 ...
So it's not always the spoiled brats ... it was the fact that A.) I didn't know at the time you could get software without buying it ... and B.) My father raised me to respect other peoples things and that stealing was wrong.
That did kinda wear off through highschool ... but hey :-)
SuperDuG
I think that most of the "pirates" know more about the illegalities of what they're doing more than the actual people aresting them. In fact I would bet my legal software on it.
Now comes the question of why is Piracy so big? Well why is drug use and prostitution so big? Well they make people feel good (not endorsing either, but lets face it ... coke heads like the feeling they get from stuffing their nostrils with coke) ... Getting something for free has always made people feel good about themselves.
Let's figure in the MS-Factor ... MS makes most of it's money from site licenses and OEM's ... they don't make their money from off the shelf Operating Systems. Now their games and apps, yessir they pay for all those. According to MS Though you _can_ have a the same copy of Office and Windows at home and office ... so long as you don't use the computers at the same time (which is technically physically impossible) ... But MS does make games and I will admit that I know of people "stealing" from MS everyday. Do I think that they're criminals? Hell no ... I blame the MS for making a standard that is used in schools and accepted in the office that we are taxed for in our homes for compatability issues.
Now lets throw in the OSS factor. Of course OSS doesn't have to worry about piracy, hell they ask people to share (dumb bastards *note the previous comment was meant to poke fun as a person who is coming from the stance of microsoft*). So what's the solution, THERE ISN'T ONE
So why is it so big??? Well it's promoted. You think someone would buy an Apex DVD player that reads CD-R's because they thought it would look better on their shelf system? Hell no ... they bought it so they could play VCD's on the thing. You think they bought their 12x burner because they wanted to make compilation CD's from CD's they already owned? No they wanted to copy CD's, make Audio CD's, and VCD's. You think that they got broadband to download on the web faster ... lol ... NO ... they got it for that wonderous P2P that is out there to make things easier for those floating in the dangerous seas.
All in all ... and in a nutshell ... piracy won't stop ... there will never be an end ... if everyone who was a software pirate were arrested then 80% of america would be sitting in a jail cell right now ... because we've all "stole from the man".
Seriously, Normal webbrowsing, chatting, and email can be done flawlessly with a 56K modem. All the other things that people do with the internet use broadband.
Send your parents a X-Mas video as an email attachment. Well Hell that alone is going to be 10 - 100 megs (depends how stupid you are about compressiong *grin*). Then there's getting that X-Mas music to pop into the background ... yup gunna pull out my p2p to grab a copy of crosby's jingle bells ... why ... well because I know somewhere downstairs I have it sitting on record somewhere that I bought in a stack of records for $5 at a garage sale.
So that's a decent point. I have yet to see a real legal reason for broadband .... and you know what??? it's all that bad illegal stuff that makes broadband sell. You really think ads about how you can see a webpage faster make joe-surfer-internet want to pay between 2 - 4 times more for the internet? Hell no ... it's seeing the neighbors with their new CD-Burner making mix CD's in a matter of minutes via KaZaa (or whatever) then burning it to a $.50 CD-R and bragging about how you just paid $13 for what they paid $.50 for ...
Then there's open source funness. Are you going to run out and buy the latest greatest $80 copy of redhat when you can pop over to linuxiso.org and just burn a copy??? We're talking $2.00 for the three CD set (and I'm counting the sticky labels as well) ...
Broadband was made for downloads to be fast ...
Then there's gaming ... When I'm playing Q3 on the net ... do you really think I'll settle for anything more than a 45 PING??? ohhh hell no ... and do you think that me playing on the uberfast server doesn't take up bandwidth? OF COURSE IT DOES ... but you know what ... that's what I'm forking $52 out a month for ... the ability to do just that ...
So in all seriousness ... if you don't like broadband ... go to your 56K modem and leave us all alone ... because we waited for the day of 2 mb/s downloads ... and now that the day is here ... we consider that a right ... a right that we will fight to keep...
Ummm ... not to be rude ... but they have no say on the firewalls ... the reason they don't want to allow them ... is because you can then easily disable spyware they've installed ... and also by using a router you don't need to purchase extra IP's from them ...
The software is supposed to be a VNC-Type program that helps Service Reps service computers. Basically I see this as a way for them to not only monitor, but have their way with your system. Along with this software also comes a real annoying Internet Explorer with Charter MSN crap everywhere, diabling network shares, and reformating TCP/IP to their network. Basically everything you can do yourself, but they won't tell you because they want you to install their software.
The whole thing stinks and the company is hiding behind lawyers and PR reps to try and get the whole situation worked out. Basically they released a new service, and the MadLUG guys were on them in 2 days when they noticed weird activity.
Moral of the story ... don't screw with geeks ... we'll find you ... we know who you are :-)
SuperDuG
Haven't noticed a huge speed difference though
The birth of baby santa claus
In all honesty this is a bit of overkill ... and I would like to quote this site from http://words.mg2.org/
(It's since been over posted ... but I'll quote what I remember)
TRAGIC EPIDEMIC STRIKES NATION!:
It has come to our attention that there is a huge epedimic crossing the entire nation that strikes right after Thanksgiving and can last till almost Labor Day in some cases.
No know cure for this disease has been found yet, but researchers are working hard everyday to try and find a cure.
The name of this epidemic is "Turning your house into a mini godamned Las Vegas", and can be found everywhere.
I dunno ... I thought it was funny, but I also just got done stringing 4,000 bulbs for my family ... erm ... better go to the doctor I guess.
Mandrake and RedHat also sent us CD's, They were nice but also installed Gnome and KDE along with other huge apps that an average user wouldn't know what they were let alone ever use them.
Personally I would like to see Turbo up and going again, but I haven't heard anything positive coming out of it besides it's huge market-share in asia.
There is quite a problem with the active linux users thinking that they are almighty and superior. Personally I use both windows and linux and I have no problem answering questions for either OS. Both are a complete pain in the ass to use.
If you have a problem with windows, you can call up your neighborhood 14 year old and get the problem fixed with a pepsi, if you have a problem with linux ... you can _try_ to get a support package or find a local lug to help you out, but that's not as conforting.
The only thing keeping Linux alive right now is LUG's and their support for newbies. I have found that even inside LUG's you will find the egotistical types who want the user to "Learn on their own". My only problem with telling them to learn on their own is the simple fact that if they're question is "I don't have man pages installed what do I do" ... and you answer RTFM ... you just lost another linux user and their influence on other users.
For every one user you convert to linux ... they will convert three more ... it works for drugs and religions ... so be it ... it will work for linux.
Imagine if Nacho Eating was part of the Family Science Degree... i could be yet another degree holding unemployed member of america!!
If we can't help to know then WHY are you posting it?? ... hmmm?
settlement before a Senate committee, which was crippled by political maneuvering (see also the NYT story).
Seriously ... do you know ANYTHING about politics? ... it's what makes america drive and move ... the ability to manipulate people to get what you want. Sorta like how somehow you're able to manipulate people to let you stay at /.
Linuxplanet has some advice for people who want to comment on the settlement - you've got 60 days from November 28.
Ummm I do believe this particular subject will be commented on for the next 20 years. Anyone remember when Standard Oil broke up? ... yeah I do too...
Michael I am very sorry to be coming at you so strongly, but your articles are pure bullshit ... You state facts then go into opinion that has no basis behind it.
Moderators - This is not a Troll or Flame ... I AM commenting on the story.
But with all the Science Fiction words and works out there ... I think there is already wo0rks such as this on the net that already ...
Ohh well I could be wrong.