Actually, there is some form of gratification going on there, though with all the corporate sponsorship I wouldn't portray it as simply "fun". Its serious, and the arguments that the kernel devs get into w/each other is further proof of something much more than a passtime.
Why should Linus do anything for you? Me? Moi? I don't need him or his cohorts to take extra steps for my sake; I'm an experienced admin.
OTOH there are any number of people other than me who would like to know the purpose behind this. If the userspace coders have to document their software interfaces for the sake of distro interoperability, then why doesn't the kernel group document the supported hardware interfaces?
Actually you're wrong about doing work. There is tons of activity around KDE, Gnome and their associated applications.
A major problem is that the desktop environment's relationship to the kernel and vice-versa is so loose that UI expectations are pretty low. Software ultimately exists to control hardware, but our GUI software ends up not being able to control our video cards, sound chips, etc. very well as a result. I never know how my DVD drive is going to be handled, whether my player will be able to find it, what the nomenclature is for finding it in a file dialog, etc. because integration is so slipshod. These integration problems also make supporting a "Linux" application too difficult outside of strictly controlled environments where the systems are more like thin clients than PCs.
Does it make a difference about your green spending if it turns out that the turbine, equipment, and maintenance uses more energy to produce (and may not be done with renewable resources) than you can extract during its useful life? Then you're just trading "bad" energy to produce your windmill now so that you can get "good" energy over the next 20 years. The windmill becomes a battery rather than a generator. Spending a large chunk of one's income on a small turbine that cannot reasonably pay for itself isn't in itself an ecological deficit. But the fact that it takes so long or can't break even monitarily should prompt a shopper to investigate the turbine's energy balance. The thing is that the energy market is so out of whack with being unable to represent environmental costs that there are numerous high-priced energy mechanisms which do in fact have a net ecological benefit despite being a money sink.
This is the whole reason why enviro advocates and lobbyists can sound a bit schizophrenic: Some of them emphasize monetary savings and others emphasize environmental sustainability... the former are mostly interested in 'tricking' the powers that be into inadvertently saving the environment. But they too often tie themselves up into logical knots when they forget the inherent contradictions of their pocketbook-savings approach.
So yes, keeping our eyes open is good advice: We have to be mindful of physical energy paybacks in tandem with monetary ones.
Many Linux developers would say "yes", and with that I rest my case in demonstrating "the problem" with getting Linux-based stuff accepted on the desktop.
If a shopper wants to choose between 3 wifi cards, do the Linux developers bother to tell the shopper quickly and concisely which of those will work??
The community of coders, sysadmins and other techies aren't even interested in TELLING Linux novices that an "Acme Inc" device is supported! So OEMs see little actual need for compatibility being expressed. No comprehensive and authoritative Hardware Compatibility List = no market pressure.
If Linus had one hairsbreadth of concern for a users' ability to discern compatibility while contemplating hardware purchases, then his group would have setup an HCL years ago. But instead he leaves that horrid little task of dealing with the unwashed to the distros, who produce pathetic nearly-empty HCL databases with some of the most unpleasant web-search design imaginable.
You have just articulated the major perceptual obstacle to Linux developers' ability to grasp the desktop. They refuse to draw a neat line between "system" and "applications" and then promote and support that set of interfaces, so there is no consistent platform that facilitates independent distribution of applications to end-users.
Germany apparently gets 15% of its energy from renewables because they guarantee a high rate of payback. They are actively trying to force their own hand to the point where they have to deal with the energy storage problem; in fact, the pricing structure practically guarantees that companies will be falling over themselves to provide storage solutions.
Whoa there... Since when does the market cost of the embodied energy of a product have anything to do with the cost to the environment (which is typically much more severe though less noticeable to the consumer)? We are in this climate change mess because the market cannot measure ecological value.
If the manufacturer can prove they use renewable energy for most materials and components in the windmill, then I'd buy the eco-friendly argument. Otherwise, the case still has to be made for the green properties of small-scale windmills.
...they still have a justified market: In the genuinely off-grid areas where there is no power line access.
Of course these days, the people who A) want to show off, or B) don't mind spending to help the environment (or both) probably represent a large and growing market.
And while its true that the money could be "better" spent on a green electric plan from the utility, you still have to trust the utility to generate the amount of windpower they claim. I can imagine living in areas of the USA where I'd prefer to be a self-installer rather than trust even the most showy "green" utility not to lie.
As someone who has been using it for nine years, I would say that X11 is old and immature. We are talking about a GUI subsystem that can't even fall back to a safe res/refresh when something goes wrong. Its config tools are terrible, often producing erroneous or unworkable conf file; None of the FOSS X11 projects like Xfree or Xorg ever took ownership of the configuration usability issue.
And then there is the putrid audio architecture: I still have audio apps unintentionally blocking each other on my 'modern' distro. So I can't count on hearing my calendar alarms, or phone ringing, and too often I have to hunt through a process list to find a 'blocker' before I can make a quick call (which is no longer quick). NEVER have I had this problem on an NT-class Windows system or a Mac.
Once you've gotten that bad at audio AND visual, then you're pretty much hostile to the end-user. Not focusing on these areas is sheer absurdity, and I guarantee that the Linux Foundation gives a rats a$$. They aren't absurd for turning their back on desktop users; they're absurd for not telling desktop users to STAY AWAY.
No I think you are oversimplifying by implying the expansion affects everything such as particles and light (where our 'units' come from) and time. But time isn't just another dimension, its directional and we are 'falling' through it at a relatively constant rate.
Whatever is happening with the distance and redshift between galaxies, it is affecting space and time quite differently, otherwise we might not be able to notice the effect.
That the FOSS movement hasn't yet learned the personal computing paradigm is a crucial insight.
Its first problem is that most FOSS developers are coding for themselves or their programmer/sysadmin peers, not end-users (and usually not even application developers, since a "Linux" desktop platform remains poorly defined / non-existent).
The second problem is going overboard with Unix culture, which leads FOSS advocates to stump for thin client / server architecture and centralized control often without even realizing. This results in an internal contradiction that is getting bigger each day. The FOSS crowd loves its LAMP platform, which tellingly doesn't even include 'Browser' in the acronym, so grudging is the acceptance of PC software! The community has no other platform that even approaches user-facing status, nor can it even articulate the need for such a thing, so the reflexes and the subtext are aimed at "replacing the desktop" with the web.
So naturally, FOSS continues to flounder with end-users not because the latter are 'dumb', but because they sense the lack of any substantial intent to serve them.
You MUST offer an OS that has both a well-defined API and a well-defined UI in order to have a ploatform that is attractive to end-users and app developers alike (and esp. the end-users who will start to explore coding). It must also offer a comprehensive default IDE that a child can use-- but there is no FOSS analog to Xcode + ADC or Visual Studio + MSDN.
So, dear reader, THAT is why so few people are ever inspired to follow their passion on a FOSS operating system to create the next Skype, the next Paint Shop Pro, the next Quicken or Sketchup -- the applications that sell the systems. You can have less than 5% of the installed userbase like Apple did and still attract considerable talent with the right structures (a platform) and tools.
Define a real platform - from the kernel on up to the IDE and file dialogs - and they will come!
Indeed. I'd go as far as to say that parenting classes ought to be mandatory, with instructions that children ought to be kept from browsing the Internet by themselves much as they are kept from driving automobiles.
As for these computer safety lessons, how much to do want to bet that no where in the entire school curriculum is the correct way to use HTTPS taught?
The only people who like the cell phone schemes and would like this scheme are those who do not fully utilize their connection. You said it right there. Where Internet service is concerned, most people come nowhere near reaching the unspoken transfer limits on their 'unlimited' plans. Only a tiny minority of subscribers generate the vast majority of traffic.
I think this proposal is a bit reckless and naive at the same time. Not a good combination. Add to that he is trying to set a precedent for data degradation when none is needed.
If networks want to reduce traffic in a civil manner, they will price their service similar to the way hosting providers do: Offer a flat rate up to a set cap measured in Gb/month, with overages priced at a different rate. People would then pay for their excesses, allowing the ISP to spend more on adding capacity.
End-users like this arrangement for cellphone service. They would understand and appreciate such a thing coming to their Internet service, especially if it meant that most of them ended up paying $10 less on their monthly bill.
I think we are not seeing a transition to cap-and-overage pricing structure because the ISPs are more interested in becoming monopolies, not with competing the way wireless services naturally do. Verizon is turning its back on many lower-middle-income areas while it tears out common-carrier POTS lines from the neighborhoods it does serve. Comcast winks, nods and accepts its role for the lower-end neighborhoods, degrading throughput and behaving as a paternalistic manipulator of data in the process. They are carving up the market, so don't expect rational and time-tested solutions that benefit the customer.
So it's either very hard to form micro black holes, or they evaporate very quickly. Or they don't form at all, infinite density = nonsense, and what most people think are black holes are actually something like gravistars.
Do you think XAN and other projects like the possibility of incorporating MS patents into their codebase?
Novell have stated that their main focus is now 'interoperability' via the Microsoft patents that have been granted to them. Novell's corporate culture has no compelling reason to avoid implementing MS patents; quite the opposite in fact. Their execs are making increasingly flaky, shift statements WRT patents as well.
I don't think it odd at all that they are mistrusted.
So...your city created their own santioned monopoly and that means you advocate the theft of private property by "the people." WHAT private property?
As for the rest of your dogma, it scarcely makes any sense in the context of this discussion. Verizon is becoming the upscale monopoly and Comcast the downmarket monopoly, and in a growing number of local markets Verizon simply refuses to offer data service. So, can you comprehend what a private monopoly is and how it sheds all accountability?
There was a vulnerability in Windows that allowed attackers to remotely install arbitrary CA certificates in the operating system's certificate store without users' knowledge. That was an implementation problem with Windows, not with the design of https.
Exactly. I've trained everyone I know to reject https connections that have cert warnings, based on the reasoning that there is no excuse whatsoever for a med-large site operator to have a lapsed cert.
And you know what, they HEED my advice. They now have a priceless tool to protect themselves online where no one had ever mentioned it to them before.
IMO, we can't blame users where they've been kept ignorant, and in the case of https most techies write users off as click-through morons instead of taking 5 min with them. And most of the techies don't even know how to use https properly, thinking that the lock symbol is all you have to look for (the proper way is to check the domain name at the same moment you check for the lock).
Three criteria of https: 1) No cert warnings appear, 2) lock is present in address bar, 3) domain name is correct. Very simple, but if any one criteria is overlooked then you're not verifying link security.
The card maker wants to be Windows only so don't buy it. Sooner or later hardware vendors will have to come around. My experience asking people about this for nearly two years tells me 100% that you are wrong. People aren't even told how to use https properly these days ("look for the lock" doesn't cut it), if they are even told at all. Your opinion represents the failure of techie culture in giving up on the general population, and quite frankly I am tired of hearing the cop-outs and lazy, elitist sneering about browser users from incompetents such as yourself. You (and many others) have done the equivalent of forgetting that a car uses a transmission to connect the engine to the wheels.
Scams always have an element of social engineering. And they succeed far more when users are left ignorant and unable to make the right choice.
You forget that, and all your fancy technology just gives you a false sense of security. Oh, so we are railing against "fancy technology" on Slashdot, are we? Well, you are using a computer and a web browser to say that, buster, so you sound like a hypocrite.
What I want is a certificate scheme that verifies not just that you're access a certified site, but automatically displays who the certificate was issued to. That feature would not only help prevent phishing, it would provide a mechanism for identifying email users. The address + lock doesn't just show that you are accessing "a certified site", it shows that the actual address being displayed is itself cryptographically signed and has connected you to the actual physical server(s) the registrant intended. i.e. the address itself is a keyed identity that is proof against tampering.
Most people will not want a certificate dialog popping up every time a secure page is accessed. To see this info you can click the lock when the address bar turns yellow (you probably forgot that too) or you can write a small browser plugin to do this automatically if one doesn't already exist.
Slashdot Mirror
OTOH there are any number of people other than me who would like to know the purpose behind this. If the userspace coders have to document their software interfaces for the sake of distro interoperability, then why doesn't the kernel group document the supported hardware interfaces?
Actually you're wrong about doing work. There is tons of activity around KDE, Gnome and their associated applications.
A major problem is that the desktop environment's relationship to the kernel and vice-versa is so loose that UI expectations are pretty low. Software ultimately exists to control hardware, but our GUI software ends up not being able to control our video cards, sound chips, etc. very well as a result. I never know how my DVD drive is going to be handled, whether my player will be able to find it, what the nomenclature is for finding it in a file dialog, etc. because integration is so slipshod. These integration problems also make supporting a "Linux" application too difficult outside of strictly controlled environments where the systems are more like thin clients than PCs.
This is the whole reason why enviro advocates and lobbyists can sound a bit schizophrenic: Some of them emphasize monetary savings and others emphasize environmental sustainability... the former are mostly interested in 'tricking' the powers that be into inadvertently saving the environment. But they too often tie themselves up into logical knots when they forget the inherent contradictions of their pocketbook-savings approach.
So yes, keeping our eyes open is good advice: We have to be mindful of physical energy paybacks in tandem with monetary ones.
What do you think the GUI is? An application??
Many Linux developers would say "yes", and with that I rest my case in demonstrating "the problem" with getting Linux-based stuff accepted on the desktop.
If a shopper wants to choose between 3 wifi cards, do the Linux developers bother to tell the shopper quickly and concisely which of those will work??
The community of coders, sysadmins and other techies aren't even interested in TELLING Linux novices that an "Acme Inc" device is supported! So OEMs see little actual need for compatibility being expressed. No comprehensive and authoritative Hardware Compatibility List = no market pressure.
If Linus had one hairsbreadth of concern for a users' ability to discern compatibility while contemplating hardware purchases, then his group would have setup an HCL years ago. But instead he leaves that horrid little task of dealing with the unwashed to the distros, who produce pathetic nearly-empty HCL databases with some of the most unpleasant web-search design imaginable.
You have just articulated the major perceptual obstacle to Linux developers' ability to grasp the desktop. They refuse to draw a neat line between "system" and "applications" and then promote and support that set of interfaces, so there is no consistent platform that facilitates independent distribution of applications to end-users.
The Upside-Down-Ternet (*evil grin*)
Typical... you omitted the part about the chasis. That is considered an 'accessory' by you?
Germany apparently gets 15% of its energy from renewables because they guarantee a high rate of payback. They are actively trying to force their own hand to the point where they have to deal with the energy storage problem; in fact, the pricing structure practically guarantees that companies will be falling over themselves to provide storage solutions.
Whoa there... Since when does the market cost of the embodied energy of a product have anything to do with the cost to the environment (which is typically much more severe though less noticeable to the consumer)? We are in this climate change mess because the market cannot measure ecological value.
If the manufacturer can prove they use renewable energy for most materials and components in the windmill, then I'd buy the eco-friendly argument. Otherwise, the case still has to be made for the green properties of small-scale windmills.
...they still have a justified market: In the genuinely off-grid areas where there is no power line access.
Of course these days, the people who A) want to show off, or B) don't mind spending to help the environment (or both) probably represent a large and growing market.
And while its true that the money could be "better" spent on a green electric plan from the utility, you still have to trust the utility to generate the amount of windpower they claim. I can imagine living in areas of the USA where I'd prefer to be a self-installer rather than trust even the most showy "green" utility not to lie.
As someone who has been using it for nine years, I would say that X11 is old and immature. We are talking about a GUI subsystem that can't even fall back to a safe res/refresh when something goes wrong. Its config tools are terrible, often producing erroneous or unworkable conf file; None of the FOSS X11 projects like Xfree or Xorg ever took ownership of the configuration usability issue.
And then there is the putrid audio architecture: I still have audio apps unintentionally blocking each other on my 'modern' distro. So I can't count on hearing my calendar alarms, or phone ringing, and too often I have to hunt through a process list to find a 'blocker' before I can make a quick call (which is no longer quick). NEVER have I had this problem on an NT-class Windows system or a Mac.
Once you've gotten that bad at audio AND visual, then you're pretty much hostile to the end-user. Not focusing on these areas is sheer absurdity, and I guarantee that the Linux Foundation gives a rats a$$. They aren't absurd for turning their back on desktop users; they're absurd for not telling desktop users to STAY AWAY.
No I think you are oversimplifying by implying the expansion affects everything such as particles and light (where our 'units' come from) and time. But time isn't just another dimension, its directional and we are 'falling' through it at a relatively constant rate.
Whatever is happening with the distance and redshift between galaxies, it is affecting space and time quite differently, otherwise we might not be able to notice the effect.
That the FOSS movement hasn't yet learned the personal computing paradigm is a crucial insight.
Its first problem is that most FOSS developers are coding for themselves or their programmer/sysadmin peers, not end-users (and usually not even application developers, since a "Linux" desktop platform remains poorly defined / non-existent).
The second problem is going overboard with Unix culture, which leads FOSS advocates to stump for thin client / server architecture and centralized control often without even realizing. This results in an internal contradiction that is getting bigger each day. The FOSS crowd loves its LAMP platform, which tellingly doesn't even include 'Browser' in the acronym, so grudging is the acceptance of PC software! The community has no other platform that even approaches user-facing status, nor can it even articulate the need for such a thing, so the reflexes and the subtext are aimed at "replacing the desktop" with the web.
So naturally, FOSS continues to flounder with end-users not because the latter are 'dumb', but because they sense the lack of any substantial intent to serve them.
You MUST offer an OS that has both a well-defined API and a well-defined UI in order to have a ploatform that is attractive to end-users and app developers alike (and esp. the end-users who will start to explore coding). It must also offer a comprehensive default IDE that a child can use-- but there is no FOSS analog to Xcode + ADC or Visual Studio + MSDN.
So, dear reader, THAT is why so few people are ever inspired to follow their passion on a FOSS operating system to create the next Skype, the next Paint Shop Pro, the next Quicken or Sketchup -- the applications that sell the systems. You can have less than 5% of the installed userbase like Apple did and still attract considerable talent with the right structures (a platform) and tools.
Define a real platform - from the kernel on up to the IDE and file dialogs - and they will come!
Indeed. I'd go as far as to say that parenting classes ought to be mandatory, with instructions that children ought to be kept from browsing the Internet by themselves much as they are kept from driving automobiles.
As for these computer safety lessons, how much to do want to bet that no where in the entire school curriculum is the correct way to use HTTPS taught?
...from one's own TCP stack.
I think this proposal is a bit reckless and naive at the same time. Not a good combination. Add to that he is trying to set a precedent for data degradation when none is needed.
If networks want to reduce traffic in a civil manner, they will price their service similar to the way hosting providers do: Offer a flat rate up to a set cap measured in Gb/month, with overages priced at a different rate. People would then pay for their excesses, allowing the ISP to spend more on adding capacity.
End-users like this arrangement for cellphone service. They would understand and appreciate such a thing coming to their Internet service, especially if it meant that most of them ended up paying $10 less on their monthly bill.
I think we are not seeing a transition to cap-and-overage pricing structure because the ISPs are more interested in becoming monopolies, not with competing the way wireless services naturally do. Verizon is turning its back on many lower-middle-income areas while it tears out common-carrier POTS lines from the neighborhoods it does serve. Comcast winks, nods and accepts its role for the lower-end neighborhoods, degrading throughput and behaving as a paternalistic manipulator of data in the process. They are carving up the market, so don't expect rational and time-tested solutions that benefit the customer.
Links are promotional and offtopic.
Frankly the omission of RHEL support clearly shows that an agenda is being followed that hasn't much to do with creating a useful/desirable product.
Do you think XAN and other projects like the possibility of incorporating MS patents into their codebase?
Novell have stated that their main focus is now 'interoperability' via the Microsoft patents that have been granted to them. Novell's corporate culture has no compelling reason to avoid implementing MS patents; quite the opposite in fact. Their execs are making increasingly flaky, shift statements WRT patents as well.
I don't think it odd at all that they are mistrusted.
As for the rest of your dogma, it scarcely makes any sense in the context of this discussion. Verizon is becoming the upscale monopoly and Comcast the downmarket monopoly, and in a growing number of local markets Verizon simply refuses to offer data service. So, can you comprehend what a private monopoly is and how it sheds all accountability?
Exactly. I've trained everyone I know to reject https connections that have cert warnings, based on the reasoning that there is no excuse whatsoever for a med-large site operator to have a lapsed cert.
And you know what, they HEED my advice. They now have a priceless tool to protect themselves online where no one had ever mentioned it to them before.
IMO, we can't blame users where they've been kept ignorant, and in the case of https most techies write users off as click-through morons instead of taking 5 min with them. And most of the techies don't even know how to use https properly, thinking that the lock symbol is all you have to look for (the proper way is to check the domain name at the same moment you check for the lock).
Three criteria of https: 1) No cert warnings appear, 2) lock is present in address bar, 3) domain name is correct. Very simple, but if any one criteria is overlooked then you're not verifying link security.
Most people will not want a certificate dialog popping up every time a secure page is accessed. To see this info you can click the lock when the address bar turns yellow (you probably forgot that too) or you can write a small browser plugin to do this automatically if one doesn't already exist.