A typical desktop distro is an example of a system that is very 'fat' in terms of available components, but poor in terms of what can be considered integral to the system. There is gobs of duplicated functionality, and the packaging system treats all these pieces pretty equally and a lot of it can get in the way when you have independantly installed apps. So I think the difficulty for upgrading that you speak of is more acute in desktop distros than it is for, say, OS X.
Ubuntu is starting to limit the role of the managed repository: It will continue to be used for the core OS, but apps will increasingly use the new format which primarily specifies the OS version as a dependency to be checked. If the app needs more than what the OS offers, then they are free to include the extra libraries in their own tree. This makes a lot of sense and I hope it catches on with app developers.
c)...is the clincher. MS and Apple both established the expectation that independantly-distributed software can be easily bought off-the-shelf or downloaded, and then easily installed. Its not a personal computing OS unless it meets this defacto standard.
2)...is overstated in this thread. Authors try to use the OS libraries when possible, keeping third-party libraries to a minimum.
3)...also overstated here, I think. In the case of MacOS, its often up to the user if they want an app managed by Sparkle or the App Store.
4)...this is a GOOD thing. As for LSB, they didn't even have an SDK until about a year ago. The Linux Foundation did not promote LSB as a 'brand' that developers should target, and never gained mindshare as a result. Defining a rich minimum environment fosters feature stability that allows developers to function without feeling its just a short matter of time before the rug gets pulled out from underneath them.
IIRC, both the Linux Foundation (in its usual timid way) and Canonical tried to get the desktop distros to standardize on library versions. But many would not do it. What Canonical is doing now is different: They're saying "we define the user and authoring experience for Ubuntu". If other distros come along that are "Ubuntu compatible", they would have less freedom than merely being an LSB compatible distro... but that if often a good thing from the user's point of view.
But they *do* standardize on library versions most of the time... when they are using system-supplied libraries. A desktop OS should be rich enough that even the most involved applications should only need a smattering of third-party libraries.
IMO, this sort of thing is not a significant source of bloat.
Canonical have realized that an OS needs its own packaging system if it is to thrive. App authors need a break from specifying in detail what each piece of system funtionality should look like, and also from fielding inquiries from umpteen different distro maintainers (when you were only interested in having the app work on one or two distros in the first place). Simple-to-moderately complex apps should be able to work just fine by specifying nothing more than the OS version as a dependency.
Bonus problem: Now each app provider is responsible for addressing a hypothetical libcrytpo vulnerability rather than the distro patching it in one place.
When you commit to really learning and writing well for a desktop OS, you don't go looking looking for third-party crypto packages first. The OS should have great crypto tools built-in. OTOH, if your app needs a ton of unusual functionality then chances are its either going to be run in an unusual environment with hardware specs to match... or it will be very prized with boutique-level appeal and people won't mind an extra 50-100MB of used space.
These conversations (which cycle endlessly on FOSS fan sites like this without any seeming ability to learn from history) are a reason why I totally gave up on desktop Linux around 2008. The assumptions that hackers kept insisting on making in their promotion of the category were mostly inappropriate/delusional... as if typical users *wanted* to learn about different libraries and toolkits as the most visible feature in an app's description... as if a company could practically undertake a tech support effort where most of the users were *likely* to describe an interface that was not readily familiar to trained staff... as if people (in school or otherwise) who start wading into app programming want to discover that the program they wrote only has a 1-in-50 chance of running unmodified on their colleages' Linux systems (Oops! looks like they don't work like they are the same OS)....And they really *aren't* the same OS. Not according to groundrules and user expectations that were hammered out for the personal computer market by Apple and Microsoft.
So at first glance it seems like Ubuntu is going in the right direction with this. As much as I hate the Unity interface, this packaging scheme and other developments restore some hope. Ubuntu is outgrowing the "Linux distro" genre and growing up. Even if the package format is technically just a slight variation of dpkg/apt, the expectations that go along with it can make a world of difference.
Tor and I2P are each capable of sharing an IP address with multiples of themselves. I2P can also traverse a firewall-like NAT pretty easily (I'm not sure about Tor). You also cite a chicken-and-egg conundrum for Tor and I2P, but that's more of an IPv6 problem because end users have no say in whether they can use IPv6 with their ISPs.
The point is that overcoming ISP-level NAT is possible with some adjustment, using a layer that provides identity-style addressing. Like any big innovation, early adopters will have to flesh it out a bit first.
Hows this even remotely related to the actual issues which come with NAT?
With anonymous networks like Tor and I2P, you get a crypto-based identity that doubles as your network address. No one else can change it, and you can take it with you.
Choosing between static IP or NAT is 1993 thinking: The former enhances surveillance and the latter degrades connectivity options (esp. for anything that isn't strictly a client).
The debate should really be about whether IP+DNS is an outdated form of addressing. IMO, they cannot be made consistently loyal to their users' interests (they are subject to tampering and exploits) so they should be -- if not retired -- then demoted in such a way that they matter only on a minute-by-minute basis.
Tor and I2P have such a scheme. They are an extra layer between the network hardware and the application that implement cryptographically-based addressing that also form the basis for identity as well. The identity is the address, and its independant of hardware- and provider-based addressing. Having one's IP address shift from week to week poses no challenge for these anonymous networks. They both offer a better example of the marketing and politics at work in IP and DNS.
You only share among people with same shared key. So, no, you are not spreading your encrypted file to other people. At 1:1 it's pretty much direct peer-to-peer transfer. If more nodes are participating, then it can leverage distributed transfers from other nodes that may have part of the whole part of a file.
I haven't tried it yet, but it sounds like Sync may accomplish the very significant task of getting users to easily share and manage (and use) keys like it was just something you do while working with your files.
That would be far more significant than merely attaching a distributed filesystem to a P2P protocol.
The one thing that is undeniably dumb about rap is the almost incessant projection of anger. At some point, I don't care how clever the prose is; it becomes a dull grinding pain to listen.
“I’m not in reality, So when u see me fucking go insane and make the news, the paper, and the fucking federal house of horror known as the white house, Don’t fucking cry or be worried because all YOU people fucking caused this shit. Fuck a boston bominb wait till u see the shit I do, I’m a be famous rapping, and beat every murder charge that comes across me"
Libertarians keep having to explain their ideology because they have chosen the Republican party to express their desires, yet the Republicans are goose-steppers par excellence. And not only has there been high conformity, but the now glaring irrationalist white Christian male identity that accounts for what popularity the Republican party has left. The rest of the political spectrum now call you the Libertarian Right.
In any case, your ideology has no crediblity after 1) the overt transformation of deregulated capitalism into oligarchy (with accompanying economic meltdown, no less), and 2) failure to protect the environment in any sense beyond NIMBY-ism. Libertarians will forever deny they were providing rhetorical cover in the advancement these maladies, because absolute purity was never attained (hence, no 'free market' existed); this is really a religious faith.
The Libertarians believe that a person has a right to the fruit of their own labors...
And that an individual can only negotiate the amount of fruit *strictly* as an individual against the multitudinous corporation and business consortia. No thanks.
Any Libertarian who tried to pull the sort of shenanigans that we're seeing here would be tarred and feathered and run out of town on a rail by his/her own party.
I gotta ask... How old are you??
Looks like the moderator could only settle on 'Overrated'... I feel honored to accept such grudging disapproval from this set.
Or at least the freedom to be indifferent to them.
Is it your intention to plead excessive age or youth as an excuse for a post that fired shots off in all directions without hitting a single target?
You know what they say about denial.
Its no surprise that the only Libertarian politician you referenced is a Christian fundamentalist who would not object to slavery. His legacy in politics is a marriage with John Birchers that produced a seething mass of irrationalist bigotry and financial/institutional sabotage known as the Tea Party.
Now that's a fine albatross you have there around your neck.
Obama is not a war monger like 'W'. He is more like Bush Sr.
With that said, I reject the "wasted vote" doctrine of bipartisan purity as you do. Esp. if one lives in a state that is comfortably R or D, there is no excuse to not make your conscience felt at the polls.
Libertarians keep having to explain their ideology because they have chosen the Republican party to express their desires, yet the Republicans are goose-steppers par excellence. And not only has there been high conformity, but the now glaring irrationalist white Christian male identity that accounts for what popularity the Republican party has left. The rest of the political spectrum now call you the Libertarian Right.
In any case, your ideology has no crediblity after 1) the overt transformation of deregulated capitalism into oligarchy (with accompanying economic meltdown, no less), and 2) failure to protect the environment in any sense beyond NIMBY-ism. Libertarians will forever deny they were providing rhetorical cover in the advancement these maladies, because absolute purity was never attained (hence, no 'free market' existed); this is really a religious faith.
The Libertarians believe that a person has a right to the fruit of their own labors...
And that an individual can only negotiate the amount of fruit *strictly* as an individual against the multitudinous corporation and business consortia. No thanks.
Any Libertarian who tried to pull the sort of shenanigans that we're seeing here would be tarred and feathered and run out of town on a rail by his/her own party.
Because the day after or the week after I install a new app, I'd like to be able to find it without having to write its name on a piece of paper beside my computer.
There are some things which I will only use occasionally, even if I do find them very useful. Unity gets in the way of finding such apps.
I don't want to wade through a table of barf that includes almost every odd scrap in the system that happens to have an icon associated with it.
The most important one that comes to mind is that its vaunted 'network transparency' is decades behind what Windows and OS X are capable of: The only way to have multiple users share one desktop or app (for, you know, one of those weird things called a 'meeting') is to toss around bitmap deltas a-la VNC. Hence, X11 is grossly inefficient for a crucial use case (oops, used a modern concept there).
In fact, even for the X11-supported ability for one user to run an app remotely, X11 still sucks. You have to be on the same LAN for it to work smoothly. Over the Internet, forget it... you have to install and setup NX which is a pain. But its telling that X11 developers never found this Internet-friendly re-work of their protocol interesting enough to change what they were doing.
I could name at least a couple more big drawbacks to X11 that impact users directly. I say put the thing out of its misery; Its certainly caused me enough.
I think what it boils down to is that mass murders are out of their minds and often suicidal. The power and attention they want from the rampage becomes the last and only thing they care about, even to the exclusion of their own lives.
Having some armed people in the vicinity does not deter these maniacs.
How much good has come from the consumer space? Some kickbacks from Android? That's basically it. It seems that Linux has to become the enemy to beat the enemy in the consumer space.
What?? How about not having MS or Apple in control of the mobile market? How about having a platform that both attracts lots of good apps and gives techies avenues for extensive customization?
Slashdot Mirror
A typical desktop distro is an example of a system that is very 'fat' in terms of available components, but poor in terms of what can be considered integral to the system. There is gobs of duplicated functionality, and the packaging system treats all these pieces pretty equally and a lot of it can get in the way when you have independantly installed apps. So I think the difficulty for upgrading that you speak of is more acute in desktop distros than it is for, say, OS X.
Ubuntu is starting to limit the role of the managed repository: It will continue to be used for the core OS, but apps will increasingly use the new format which primarily specifies the OS version as a dependency to be checked. If the app needs more than what the OS offers, then they are free to include the extra libraries in their own tree. This makes a lot of sense and I hope it catches on with app developers.
c) ...is the clincher. MS and Apple both established the expectation that independantly-distributed software can be easily bought off-the-shelf or downloaded, and then easily installed. Its not a personal computing OS unless it meets this defacto standard.
2) ...is overstated in this thread. Authors try to use the OS libraries when possible, keeping third-party libraries to a minimum.
3) ...also overstated here, I think. In the case of MacOS, its often up to the user if they want an app managed by Sparkle or the App Store.
4) ...this is a GOOD thing. As for LSB, they didn't even have an SDK until about a year ago. The Linux Foundation did not promote LSB as a 'brand' that developers should target, and never gained mindshare as a result. Defining a rich minimum environment fosters feature stability that allows developers to function without feeling its just a short matter of time before the rug gets pulled out from underneath them.
IIRC, both the Linux Foundation (in its usual timid way) and Canonical tried to get the desktop distros to standardize on library versions. But many would not do it. What Canonical is doing now is different: They're saying "we define the user and authoring experience for Ubuntu". If other distros come along that are "Ubuntu compatible", they would have less freedom than merely being an LSB compatible distro... but that if often a good thing from the user's point of view.
Nope... real desktops don't work like that: http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3730307&cid=43672237
But they *do* standardize on library versions most of the time... when they are using system-supplied libraries. A desktop OS should be rich enough that even the most involved applications should only need a smattering of third-party libraries.
IMO, this sort of thing is not a significant source of bloat.
Canonical have realized that an OS needs its own packaging system if it is to thrive. App authors need a break from specifying in detail what each piece of system funtionality should look like, and also from fielding inquiries from umpteen different distro maintainers (when you were only interested in having the app work on one or two distros in the first place). Simple-to-moderately complex apps should be able to work just fine by specifying nothing more than the OS version as a dependency.
Bonus problem: Now each app provider is responsible for addressing a hypothetical libcrytpo vulnerability rather than the distro patching it in one place.
When you commit to really learning and writing well for a desktop OS, you don't go looking looking for third-party crypto packages first. The OS should have great crypto tools built-in. OTOH, if your app needs a ton of unusual functionality then chances are its either going to be run in an unusual environment with hardware specs to match... or it will be very prized with boutique-level appeal and people won't mind an extra 50-100MB of used space.
These conversations (which cycle endlessly on FOSS fan sites like this without any seeming ability to learn from history) are a reason why I totally gave up on desktop Linux around 2008. The assumptions that hackers kept insisting on making in their promotion of the category were mostly inappropriate/delusional... as if typical users *wanted* to learn about different libraries and toolkits as the most visible feature in an app's description... as if a company could practically undertake a tech support effort where most of the users were *likely* to describe an interface that was not readily familiar to trained staff... as if people (in school or otherwise) who start wading into app programming want to discover that the program they wrote only has a 1-in-50 chance of running unmodified on their colleages' Linux systems (Oops! looks like they don't work like they are the same OS). ...And they really *aren't* the same OS. Not according to groundrules and user expectations that were hammered out for the personal computer market by Apple and Microsoft.
So at first glance it seems like Ubuntu is going in the right direction with this. As much as I hate the Unity interface, this packaging scheme and other developments restore some hope. Ubuntu is outgrowing the "Linux distro" genre and growing up. Even if the package format is technically just a slight variation of dpkg/apt, the expectations that go along with it can make a world of difference.
Hmmm...no.
Tor and I2P are each capable of sharing an IP address with multiples of themselves. I2P can also traverse a firewall-like NAT pretty easily (I'm not sure about Tor). You also cite a chicken-and-egg conundrum for Tor and I2P, but that's more of an IPv6 problem because end users have no say in whether they can use IPv6 with their ISPs.
The point is that overcoming ISP-level NAT is possible with some adjustment, using a layer that provides identity-style addressing. Like any big innovation, early adopters will have to flesh it out a bit first.
Hows this even remotely related to the actual issues which come with NAT?
With anonymous networks like Tor and I2P, you get a crypto-based identity that doubles as your network address. No one else can change it, and you can take it with you.
Choosing between static IP or NAT is 1993 thinking: The former enhances surveillance and the latter degrades connectivity options (esp. for anything that isn't strictly a client).
The debate should really be about whether IP+DNS is an outdated form of addressing. IMO, they cannot be made consistently loyal to their users' interests (they are subject to tampering and exploits) so they should be -- if not retired -- then demoted in such a way that they matter only on a minute-by-minute basis.
Tor and I2P have such a scheme. They are an extra layer between the network hardware and the application that implement cryptographically-based addressing that also form the basis for identity as well. The identity is the address, and its independant of hardware- and provider-based addressing. Having one's IP address shift from week to week poses no challenge for these anonymous networks. They both offer a better example of the marketing and politics at work in IP and DNS.
You only share among people with same shared key. So, no, you are not spreading your encrypted file to other people.
At 1:1 it's pretty much direct peer-to-peer transfer. If more nodes are participating, then it can leverage distributed transfers from other nodes that may have part of the whole part of a file.
I haven't tried it yet, but it sounds like Sync may accomplish the very significant task of getting users to easily share and manage (and use) keys like it was just something you do while working with your files.
That would be far more significant than merely attaching a distributed filesystem to a P2P protocol.
I2P http://geti2p.net/
It lets you do torrents and iMule (and most other things), securely and anonymously.
The one thing that is undeniably dumb about rap is the almost incessant projection of anger. At some point, I don't care how clever the prose is; it becomes a dull grinding pain to listen.
“I’m not in reality, So when u see me fucking go insane and make the news, the paper, and the fucking federal house of horror known as the white house, Don’t fucking cry or be worried because all YOU people fucking caused this shit. Fuck a boston bominb wait till u see the shit I do, I’m a be famous rapping, and beat every murder charge that comes across me"
Isn't he taking about Washington insiders here?
...if you allow that the inaccuracies which do appear rarely stay there for long and vandalism is often repaired within 5 minutes.
This is a common misunderstanding/misperception.
Libertarians keep having to explain their ideology because they have chosen the Republican party to express their desires, yet the Republicans are goose-steppers par excellence. And not only has there been high conformity, but the now glaring irrationalist white Christian male identity that accounts for what popularity the Republican party has left. The rest of the political spectrum now call you the Libertarian Right.
In any case, your ideology has no crediblity after 1) the overt transformation of deregulated capitalism into oligarchy (with accompanying economic meltdown, no less), and 2) failure to protect the environment in any sense beyond NIMBY-ism. Libertarians will forever deny they were providing rhetorical cover in the advancement these maladies, because absolute purity was never attained (hence, no 'free market' existed); this is really a religious faith.
The Libertarians believe that a person has a right to the fruit of their own labors...
And that an individual can only negotiate the amount of fruit *strictly* as an individual against the multitudinous corporation and business consortia. No thanks.
Any Libertarian who tried to pull the sort of shenanigans that we're seeing here would be tarred and feathered and run out of town on a rail by his/her own party.
I gotta ask... How old are you??
Looks like the moderator could only settle on 'Overrated'... I feel honored to accept such grudging disapproval from this set.
Or at least the freedom to be indifferent to them.
You know what they say about denial.
Its no surprise that the only Libertarian politician you referenced is a Christian fundamentalist who would not object to slavery. His legacy in politics is a marriage with John Birchers that produced a seething mass of irrationalist bigotry and financial/institutional sabotage known as the Tea Party.
Now that's a fine albatross you have there around your neck.
What about DoNotTrackMe? I haven't seen an indication that they're like ghostery in that respect.
Their FAQ says: "we don't do advertising or data mining of any sort, ever."
It might mean that as black holes evaporate by giving off Hawking radiation, they would also build up electrical charge.
Obama is not a war monger like 'W'. He is more like Bush Sr.
With that said, I reject the "wasted vote" doctrine of bipartisan purity as you do. Esp. if one lives in a state that is comfortably R or D, there is no excuse to not make your conscience felt at the polls.
This is a common misunderstanding/misperception.
Libertarians keep having to explain their ideology because they have chosen the Republican party to express their desires, yet the Republicans are goose-steppers par excellence. And not only has there been high conformity, but the now glaring irrationalist white Christian male identity that accounts for what popularity the Republican party has left. The rest of the political spectrum now call you the Libertarian Right.
In any case, your ideology has no crediblity after 1) the overt transformation of deregulated capitalism into oligarchy (with accompanying economic meltdown, no less), and 2) failure to protect the environment in any sense beyond NIMBY-ism. Libertarians will forever deny they were providing rhetorical cover in the advancement these maladies, because absolute purity was never attained (hence, no 'free market' existed); this is really a religious faith.
The Libertarians believe that a person has a right to the fruit of their own labors...
And that an individual can only negotiate the amount of fruit *strictly* as an individual against the multitudinous corporation and business consortia. No thanks.
Any Libertarian who tried to pull the sort of shenanigans that we're seeing here would be tarred and feathered and run out of town on a rail by his/her own party.
I gotta ask... How old are you??
thanks...
Because the day after or the week after I install a new app, I'd like to be able to find it without having to write its name on a piece of paper beside my computer.
There are some things which I will only use occasionally, even if I do find them very useful. Unity gets in the way of finding such apps.
I don't want to wade through a table of barf that includes almost every odd scrap in the system that happens to have an icon associated with it.
The most important one that comes to mind is that its vaunted 'network transparency' is decades behind what Windows and OS X are capable of: The only way to have multiple users share one desktop or app (for, you know, one of those weird things called a 'meeting') is to toss around bitmap deltas a-la VNC. Hence, X11 is grossly inefficient for a crucial use case (oops, used a modern concept there).
In fact, even for the X11-supported ability for one user to run an app remotely, X11 still sucks. You have to be on the same LAN for it to work smoothly. Over the Internet, forget it... you have to install and setup NX which is a pain. But its telling that X11 developers never found this Internet-friendly re-work of their protocol interesting enough to change what they were doing.
I could name at least a couple more big drawbacks to X11 that impact users directly. I say put the thing out of its misery; Its certainly caused me enough.
If that eventually translates into 14% growth in profits for themselves, then ad agencies will no doubt try to exploit and encourage the difference.
The gun culture has worked to protect people who handle and traffic in explosives:
NRA Lobbyists Stymie Effort to Trace Explosives
Studies have been done on this subject and they don't line up with the gun lobby rhetoric. Please read this and digest it:
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/04/mass-shootings-rampages-rising-data
I think what it boils down to is that mass murders are out of their minds and often suicidal. The power and attention they want from the rampage becomes the last and only thing they care about, even to the exclusion of their own lives.
Having some armed people in the vicinity does not deter these maniacs.
How much good has come from the consumer space? Some kickbacks from Android? That's basically it. It seems that Linux has to become the enemy to beat the enemy in the consumer space.
What?? How about not having MS or Apple in control of the mobile market? How about having a platform that both attracts lots of good apps and gives techies avenues for extensive customization?