That commercial TV outlets including RCTV participated in the coup is not at question; even mainstream outlets have acknowledged as much. As reporter Juan Forero, Jackson Diehl's colleague at the Washington Post, explained (1/18/07), "RCTV, like three other major private television stations, encouraged the protests," resulting in the coup, "and, once Chávez was ousted, cheered his removal." The conservative British newspaper the Financial Times reported (5/21/07), "[Venezuelan] officials argue with some justification that RCTV actively supported the 2002 coup attempt against Mr. Chávez."
As FAIR's magazine Extra! argued last November, "Were a similar event to happen in the U.S., and TV journalists and executives were caught conspiring with coup plotters, it's doubtful they would stay out of jail, let alone be allowed to continue to run television stations, as they have in Venezuela."
When Chávez returned to power the commercial stations refused to cover the news, airing instead entertainment programs--in RCTV's case, the American film Pretty Woman. By refusing to cover such a newsworthy story, the stations abandoned the public interest and violated the public trust that is seen in Venezuela (and in the U.S.) as a requirement for operating on the public airwaves.
Do a google search on rutkowska dma and you can read about the discovery and implementation of tools capable of sucking RAM contents from a live machine. This totally bypasses all security measures in the OS and firmware of a system.
Rootkits and keyloggers can even be installed into RAM via DMA without leaving a trace on disk.
And will go further to say that Firefox and OOo have enjoyed this level of success (from Windows) BECAUSE users didn't have to wrestle with a bloody package-manager to get the software installed. Windows and Mac users always get the earliest access to the latest FOSS updates, while Linux users must wait for their repository to catch-up or learn how to fight with the package manager.
In fact, Mozilla is so fed up with *nix package managers and umpteen different repositories, that they no longer even distribute their Linux binaries in RPM nor will they self-update.
Repository "priests" insert themselves between the end-user and the application developer, making things more complicated in the end for everyone except the thin-client sysadmins.
The respository/package manager paradigm cuts across the grain of personal computing culture. Very few Mac or Windows users would put up with what amounts to thin-client management methods for long. Note that ports and fink have been available for the Mac for some time, and only a sliver of the Mac techies ever use them.
Gnome, as I understand it, was conceived to "get rid of KDE". I.E. they weren't founded with a positive consumer focus. And I think that initial negative instinct bleeds through into their work and politics.
KDE, IMO needs to make their Konqueror defaults much simpler (and let the advanced users switch-on the other features because they are the ones capable of doing that). Also turn off by default the easy resizing/repositioning of the panel bar and its items. Very easy changes, but oh-so crucial to have those defaults to let novices make themselves feel at home.
Unfortunately, KDE/Qt could theoretically become hijacked by hostile corporate interests and make the commercial-use end of the equation unworkable.
If I could choose the direction of the desktop from 1998- onward, I'd focus attention and resources on the GNUstep stuff and standardize "LSB Desktop 1.0" on that.
Alas...
Another major problem (in addition to the package formats issue you mention) is that there is no default development environment, much less one where novices can start building GUI, event-driven apps and generally start cutting their teeth early on the platform. "Linux" would have many compelling apps if it presented a compelling/predictable platform for writing apps large and small; Coders will write apps for the platform they are passionate about and comfortable with, and installed userbase does not affect that incentive as extensively as many people claim. It is the apps that sell the platform/computers.
I think Apple's appdirs is a great way to install/manage apps. But they only work because there is a defined OS platform where coders know that A,B,C libraries WILL be included in the system, whereas libraries X,Y,Z probably won't (so an app that uses X, Y or Z needs to include those libraries within the appdir). Apple's role is to keep the Mac platform appealing to devs by carefully choosing which kind of libraries to include or exclude in the core OS. (In the Linux world, all libraries are pretty much lumped into one repository, and stuff gets included/excluded as if apps and obscure libraries and core functions were all equally valuable/disposable).
There is no way that VBRUN is an obscure library. And anyway, VS offers options to circumvent that step (if the coder is serious about a simple install).
This is not so in "Linux" because the coder often does not even know what packaging system or repositories are being used.
In the context of having the end-user compile-to-install, dependency hell becomes worse than it ever was with binary RPMs.
The FOSS systems engineering (if you can call it engineering) crowd does not 'get' personal computing. Many FOSS app projects like OOo and Mozilla get it (and their growing popularity shows it), but not what people refer to as "Linux". The closest I've seen to a distro that did get it would be GoboLinux (although Progeny, R.I.P., did in its own way).
The best the Linux people can manage on the desktop is a mildly appealing thin-client offering. But all the other stuff pushed as PC-ready and user-friendly is in reality ill-equipped to offer a stable environment to end-users and application developers.
Linux is unstable in how it interfaces with end-users and application developers.
Autopackage doesn't truly work because it cannot ensure that vital components will be present at install time. And since the subject was compile-during-install, I'll also add that autopackage doesn't address the availability of source code for external components referenced by the application.
Only a well-defined platform (kernel-to-desktop) can address this problem. If the FOSS community says that aint gonna happen" then a FOSS OS will not flourish on the desktop as a PC.
I predict limited acceptance on managed thin-clients and little more.
As for using CDs, no one should have to open a properties window, then cut-and-paste just to start their "simple" make; make install process.
How do you know which of those GUI toolkits will be available (aside from Xt, which is liable to blindness or at least great confusion with its jarringly primitive features)?
And if the intent is to use a GUI for compiling, how are you going to ensure that the dev sourcecode will be available for those toolkits even if the binaries are present?
If Xt is universal, then why don't we see a make system that uses it?
You made your girlfriend dependent on you to install a FLASH player??
Ask why there is no graphical install for the flash player. The answer probably has something to do with having no modern, standard GUI available in "Linux" to implement such a thing. Not only that, but there is no standard way to handle executable binaries and scripts from the GUI, so vendors like Adobe would have no idea how to provide concise yet accurate directions that would work across different desktops and distros. This is even more true for package files: double-or-maybe-single click on them and what will happen is... who knows?
Want to distribute your application on CD? Well, forget it... CDs and DVDs get mounted in umpteen different places these days depending on the distro; most of those places are considered LSB-compliant, but a normal user or even techie would be very confused trying to access the path to a CD from the shell.
To a typical user, using "Linux" is like trying to carry around luggage with handles that change size/position every time you grab for one.
Making an alkaline battery pack that you only fall back on when your internal battery runs down makes more sense IMO. The alkalines can keep their charge for years in standby if not used too frequently. And if you spend the alkaline batteries out in the field, you can easily replace them with a trip to a convenience store.
OTOH the NiMH or lead-acid will hold less charge overall and require careful attention. Also, don't buy the mass-market Energizer/RayOvac NiMH 'D' cells... their capacity is very low for their size and weight.
The private corporations that run the mass media in the US have become conglomerates that are attached to major defense contractors (and prison and security services) at the hip. There is no more independent fourth estate.
What we have now is a Corporatist system that (surprise) did everything they could to get their favorite corporate candidate (Bush was a CEO, no less) and the rest of his corporate pals into office.
What Al Gore offered (Corporatist-lite) was treated with contempt. The media heaped on ridiculous amounts of scorn and hyperventilating over details like not remembering the correct person who accompanied him on a visit to a Texas disaster site, and then kept repeating the label of "liar" for it.
Incidentally... expect Gonzales to get more favorable treatment in the media now that he is introducing bills with draconian punishments against "Intellectual Property" infractions.
...against an individual becomes more egregious when it advertises violence against a whole group of people based on arbitrary traits like skin color, ethnicity, sexual orientation, religious background, etc.
Showing such an act in a music video is not a hate crime as you imply. Although if it is done in the wrong way, it could be construed as incitement to violence in which case the advertiser/speaker could reasonably be convicted. But note this does not rest upon hate crimes legislation, has long been a cornerstone of good public policy, and yet comes far closer to being anywhere near a "thought crime" than does hate crime legislation which is concerned with violent acts themselves turning into incitement.
OTOH, if a black person assaults a white person, then whether or not they advertised that violence against a group would determine the severity of their sentencing; hate crime laws would be the vehicle for increasing the severity. It may be that there are more instances of white people assaulting blacks while using racist language; I don't know but I would guess that's the case.
Now when it comes to the question "Do people who advertise their crimes as directed against racial, etc. groups deserve more severe sentencing?", I say emphatically yes. You can't have a civilized society without punishment of incitement to violence.
homosexuality and abortion are much bigger life changing events in my book, and touch a far greater proportion of the population than patent law.
As a gay man who wants to marry, I think that software patents are a bigger issue.
The artistic and literal aspects of software are already covered well by copyright.
But the mechanisms used in software and controlled by patents are indeed pure mathematics. Any functional description of software can be reduced to uniform symbolic relationships, pcode, which is math. Avoiding the encumbrance of mathematics has long been one of the most basic intellectual freedoms in our society-- so basic that very few people ever discuss it today.
The visible matter's momentum through space was impeded at quite a different rate than dark matter. This left four distinct zones of gravitational lensing, but only TWO were associated with visible matter. The other two were dark matter halos that had been separated from each galactic cluster.
We've been hearing that the desktop's dead as long as there have been PC's.
Yes, particularly from Unix types who do not understand that people will route their data on a Sneakernet in order to circumvent an inflexible mainframe culture. The typical Linux distro (or all of them) do not understand the Personal Computer or its culture, and often the most intelligent thing they have to say about it is patently untrue (that PCs cause trojans and viruses) ignoring the whole NeXT/OS X experience.
So at least Apple provides a real alternative, although its pricey and somewhat proprietary.
I think what FOSS needs is an OS that has Unix-type engineering at its core (which we have in Linux), plus a stable UI and API environment for application programmers and their targeted users.
Many of the most exciting apps yet to come in the Internet age will incorporate distributed computing and will not be rendered in a web browser.
Your sentiment about developing regional manufacturing economies is a nice one, but the details of your thinking are lacking.
China did not become a mfg powerhouse by diving headlong into the computer market. They build up a mfg base over decades before promoting such things on a large scale.
People don't mind buying cheap & clunky calculators, watches, radios and the like. But when it comes to fussy and expensive equipment like computers, consumers have a much lower tolerance.
OLPC isn't a good fit for India probably because that project's appeal centers around building software expertise. India has been there already, and is much more interested in manufacturing at this stage. But personally, I think their ministry may be picking the wrong sort of product at too low of a price-point to be realistic. The whole thing will probably be worth more to them in terms of PR value.
...between user-facing apps and all the other miscellera in a Linux system (libraries, daemons, other backends, etc.). A regular user operating a packaging front-end like Synaptic is a recipe for quick disaster (or frustration, whichever comes first).
A front-end like Xandros Networks, Ubuntu's, or Freespire's is kindof OK, as long as the user doesn't mind being chained to that distro's central repository.
As soon as users need software not supplied by the OS vendor (Microsoft, Apple, Debian...) then Windows and OS X become orders of magnitude easier to use than popular Linux distros. The same packaging and dependency logistics means that targetting Linux users with a program that can be installed simply and reliably is also much harder.
I want to KISS my Mac every time a kernel update is downloaded, because I DON'T have to recompile all the drivers I added to the system.
Linux is NOT going anywhere in the PC market in this shape. It will find niches (like governments and banks) as a thin-client solution that will inspire very few people to run it at home.
The process isn't nearly as nice in practice as you make it out to be.
Features like ext3cow are kernel patches, not separate driver modules. Re-compiling a kernel can sometimes take *hours*, and who the hell is going to master the patch, config, make AND bootloader commands and switches to run the whole process every time their distro issues a security update for the kernel?
Its bad enough we have to keep track of and re-compile additional modules when kernel updates are issued. But re-patching and re-compiling the whole kernel is just beyond the pale even for most techies.
Step 13 should be broken down into about 7 or 8 (or 28) sub-steps that involve:
* Not finding the desired bread in the bread-package manager.
* Downloading source off author's site
* Realizing it doesn't have the neccessary feature that you heard people talking about, so you need to get the CVS version instead (install CVS and learn it post-haste).
* Chasing down all the supporting library dev packages to get it all to compile.
* Watch as the install process fails to change pertinent system settings (no desktop/menu icon, looks for the wrong/dev devices, assumes use of deprecated audio and video interfaces that require you to use gross wrappers like artsdsp, prints vague/cutesy messages that certain things in/etc will have to be edited ('cuz few of the files are consistent enough to be reliably understood and modified by a script, then have the app tell you that the installed libraries are not the same versions as the -dev references you downloaded to get the app to compile... so you recomile N-libraries in your system realizing the next day that it broke A) your packing system, and B) two other important apps you use throughout the week)...........
Slashdot Mirror
...will allow you to resize it easily.
Unless you have external ports like eSATA or Firewire.
There are rumblings that the same may be possible with USB...
Do a google search on rutkowska dma and you can read about the discovery and implementation of tools capable of sucking RAM contents from a live machine. This totally bypasses all security measures in the OS and firmware of a system.
Rootkits and keyloggers can even be installed into RAM via DMA without leaving a trace on disk.
And will go further to say that Firefox and OOo have enjoyed this level of success (from Windows) BECAUSE users didn't have to wrestle with a bloody package-manager to get the software installed. Windows and Mac users always get the earliest access to the latest FOSS updates, while Linux users must wait for their repository to catch-up or learn how to fight with the package manager.
In fact, Mozilla is so fed up with *nix package managers and umpteen different repositories, that they no longer even distribute their Linux binaries in RPM nor will they self-update.
Repository "priests" insert themselves between the end-user and the application developer, making things more complicated in the end for everyone except the thin-client sysadmins.
The respository/package manager paradigm cuts across the grain of personal computing culture. Very few Mac or Windows users would put up with what amounts to thin-client management methods for long. Note that ports and fink have been available for the Mac for some time, and only a sliver of the Mac techies ever use them.
You bring up some crucial points.
Gnome, as I understand it, was conceived to "get rid of KDE". I.E. they weren't founded with a positive consumer focus. And I think that initial negative instinct bleeds through into their work and politics.
KDE, IMO needs to make their Konqueror defaults much simpler (and let the advanced users switch-on the other features because they are the ones capable of doing that). Also turn off by default the easy resizing/repositioning of the panel bar and its items. Very easy changes, but oh-so crucial to have those defaults to let novices make themselves feel at home.
Unfortunately, KDE/Qt could theoretically become hijacked by hostile corporate interests and make the commercial-use end of the equation unworkable.
If I could choose the direction of the desktop from 1998- onward, I'd focus attention and resources on the GNUstep stuff and standardize "LSB Desktop 1.0" on that.
Alas...
Another major problem (in addition to the package formats issue you mention) is that there is no default development environment, much less one where novices can start building GUI, event-driven apps and generally start cutting their teeth early on the platform. "Linux" would have many compelling apps if it presented a compelling/predictable platform for writing apps large and small; Coders will write apps for the platform they are passionate about and comfortable with, and installed userbase does not affect that incentive as extensively as many people claim. It is the apps that sell the platform/computers.
I think Apple's appdirs is a great way to install/manage apps. But they only work because there is a defined OS platform where coders know that A,B,C libraries WILL be included in the system, whereas libraries X,Y,Z probably won't (so an app that uses X, Y or Z needs to include those libraries within the appdir). Apple's role is to keep the Mac platform appealing to devs by carefully choosing which kind of libraries to include or exclude in the core OS. (In the Linux world, all libraries are pretty much lumped into one repository, and stuff gets included/excluded as if apps and obscure libraries and core functions were all equally valuable/disposable).
There is no way that VBRUN is an obscure library. And anyway, VS offers options to circumvent that step (if the coder is serious about a simple install).
This is not so in "Linux" because the coder often does not even know what packaging system or repositories are being used.
In the context of having the end-user compile-to-install, dependency hell becomes worse than it ever was with binary RPMs.
Yes, the eternal kneejerk response.
I primarily use a Mac.
The FOSS systems engineering (if you can call it engineering) crowd does not 'get' personal computing. Many FOSS app projects like OOo and Mozilla get it (and their growing popularity shows it), but not what people refer to as "Linux". The closest I've seen to a distro that did get it would be GoboLinux (although Progeny, R.I.P., did in its own way).
The best the Linux people can manage on the desktop is a mildly appealing thin-client offering. But all the other stuff pushed as PC-ready and user-friendly is in reality ill-equipped to offer a stable environment to end-users and application developers.
Linux is unstable in how it interfaces with end-users and application developers.
Autopackage doesn't truly work because it cannot ensure that vital components will be present at install time. And since the subject was compile-during-install, I'll also add that autopackage doesn't address the availability of source code for external components referenced by the application.
Only a well-defined platform (kernel-to-desktop) can address this problem. If the FOSS community says that aint gonna happen" then a FOSS OS will not flourish on the desktop as a PC.
I predict limited acceptance on managed thin-clients and little more.
As for using CDs, no one should have to open a properties window, then cut-and-paste just to start their "simple" make; make install process.
How do you know which of those GUI toolkits will be available (aside from Xt, which is liable to blindness or at least great confusion with its jarringly primitive features)?
And if the intent is to use a GUI for compiling, how are you going to ensure that the dev sourcecode will be available for those toolkits even if the binaries are present?
If Xt is universal, then why don't we see a make system that uses it?
thanks
You made your girlfriend dependent on you to install a FLASH player??
Ask why there is no graphical install for the flash player. The answer probably has something to do with having no modern, standard GUI available in "Linux" to implement such a thing. Not only that, but there is no standard way to handle executable binaries and scripts from the GUI, so vendors like Adobe would have no idea how to provide concise yet accurate directions that would work across different desktops and distros. This is even more true for package files: double-or-maybe-single click on them and what will happen is... who knows?
Want to distribute your application on CD? Well, forget it... CDs and DVDs get mounted in umpteen different places these days depending on the distro; most of those places are considered LSB-compliant, but a normal user or even techie would be very confused trying to access the path to a CD from the shell.
To a typical user, using "Linux" is like trying to carry around luggage with handles that change size/position every time you grab for one.
Making an alkaline battery pack that you only fall back on when your internal battery runs down makes more sense IMO. The alkalines can keep their charge for years in standby if not used too frequently. And if you spend the alkaline batteries out in the field, you can easily replace them with a trip to a convenience store.
OTOH the NiMH or lead-acid will hold less charge overall and require careful attention. Also, don't buy the mass-market Energizer/RayOvac NiMH 'D' cells... their capacity is very low for their size and weight.
The private corporations that run the mass media in the US have become conglomerates that are attached to major defense contractors (and prison and security services) at the hip. There is no more independent fourth estate.
What we have now is a Corporatist system that (surprise) did everything they could to get their favorite corporate candidate (Bush was a CEO, no less) and the rest of his corporate pals into office.
What Al Gore offered (Corporatist-lite) was treated with contempt. The media heaped on ridiculous amounts of scorn and hyperventilating over details like not remembering the correct person who accompanied him on a visit to a Texas disaster site, and then kept repeating the label of "liar" for it.
Incidentally... expect Gonzales to get more favorable treatment in the media now that he is introducing bills with draconian punishments against "Intellectual Property" infractions.
...against an individual becomes more egregious when it advertises violence against a whole group of people based on arbitrary traits like skin color, ethnicity, sexual orientation, religious background, etc.
Showing such an act in a music video is not a hate crime as you imply. Although if it is done in the wrong way, it could be construed as incitement to violence in which case the advertiser/speaker could reasonably be convicted. But note this does not rest upon hate crimes legislation, has long been a cornerstone of good public policy, and yet comes far closer to being anywhere near a "thought crime" than does hate crime legislation which is concerned with violent acts themselves turning into incitement.
OTOH, if a black person assaults a white person, then whether or not they advertised that violence against a group would determine the severity of their sentencing; hate crime laws would be the vehicle for increasing the severity. It may be that there are more instances of white people assaulting blacks while using racist language; I don't know but I would guess that's the case.
Now when it comes to the question "Do people who advertise their crimes as directed against racial, etc. groups deserve more severe sentencing?", I say emphatically yes. You can't have a civilized society without punishment of incitement to violence.
...including the NEWS media...
As a gay man who wants to marry, I think that software patents are a bigger issue.
The artistic and literal aspects of software are already covered well by copyright.
But the mechanisms used in software and controlled by patents are indeed pure mathematics. Any functional description of software can be reduced to uniform symbolic relationships, pcode, which is math. Avoiding the encumbrance of mathematics has long been one of the most basic intellectual freedoms in our society-- so basic that very few people ever discuss it today.
...last year: astronomers could see in the aftermath of two colliding galactic clusters.
The visible matter's momentum through space was impeded at quite a different rate than dark matter. This left four distinct zones of gravitational lensing, but only TWO were associated with visible matter. The other two were dark matter halos that had been separated from each galactic cluster.
Yes, particularly from Unix types who do not understand that people will route their data on a Sneakernet in order to circumvent an inflexible mainframe culture. The typical Linux distro (or all of them) do not understand the Personal Computer or its culture, and often the most intelligent thing they have to say about it is patently untrue (that PCs cause trojans and viruses) ignoring the whole NeXT/OS X experience.
So at least Apple provides a real alternative, although its pricey and somewhat proprietary.
I think what FOSS needs is an OS that has Unix-type engineering at its core (which we have in Linux), plus a stable UI and API environment for application programmers and their targeted users.
Many of the most exciting apps yet to come in the Internet age will incorporate distributed computing and will not be rendered in a web browser.
And the number of students who used such a screen to read their textbooks?
Oh, I thought so...
Your sentiment about developing regional manufacturing economies is a nice one, but the details of your thinking are lacking.
China did not become a mfg powerhouse by diving headlong into the computer market. They build up a mfg base over decades before promoting such things on a large scale.
People don't mind buying cheap & clunky calculators, watches, radios and the like. But when it comes to fussy and expensive equipment like computers, consumers have a much lower tolerance.
OLPC isn't a good fit for India probably because that project's appeal centers around building software expertise. India has been there already, and is much more interested in manufacturing at this stage. But personally, I think their ministry may be picking the wrong sort of product at too low of a price-point to be realistic. The whole thing will probably be worth more to them in terms of PR value.
...between user-facing apps and all the other miscellera in a Linux system (libraries, daemons, other backends, etc.). A regular user operating a packaging front-end like Synaptic is a recipe for quick disaster (or frustration, whichever comes first).
A front-end like Xandros Networks, Ubuntu's, or Freespire's is kindof OK, as long as the user doesn't mind being chained to that distro's central repository.
As soon as users need software not supplied by the OS vendor (Microsoft, Apple, Debian...) then Windows and OS X become orders of magnitude easier to use than popular Linux distros. The same packaging and dependency logistics means that targetting Linux users with a program that can be installed simply and reliably is also much harder.
I want to KISS my Mac every time a kernel update is downloaded, because I DON'T have to recompile all the drivers I added to the system.
Linux is NOT going anywhere in the PC market in this shape. It will find niches (like governments and banks) as a thin-client solution that will inspire very few people to run it at home.
The process isn't nearly as nice in practice as you make it out to be.
Features like ext3cow are kernel patches, not separate driver modules. Re-compiling a kernel can sometimes take *hours*, and who the hell is going to master the patch, config, make AND bootloader commands and switches to run the whole process every time their distro issues a security update for the kernel?
Its bad enough we have to keep track of and re-compile additional modules when kernel updates are issued. But re-patching and re-compiling the whole kernel is just beyond the pale even for most techies.
Step 13 should be broken down into about 7 or 8 (or 28) sub-steps that involve:
/dev devices, assumes use of deprecated audio and video interfaces that require you to use gross wrappers like artsdsp, prints vague/cutesy messages that certain things in /etc will have to be edited ('cuz few of the files are consistent enough to be reliably understood and modified by a script, then have the app tell you that the installed libraries are not the same versions as the -dev references you downloaded to get the app to compile... so you recomile N-libraries in your system realizing the next day that it broke A) your packing system, and B) two other important apps you use throughout the week)...........
* Not finding the desired bread in the bread-package manager.
* Downloading source off author's site
* Realizing it doesn't have the neccessary feature that you heard people talking about, so you need to get the CVS version instead (install CVS and learn it post-haste).
* Chasing down all the supporting library dev packages to get it all to compile.
* Watch as the install process fails to change pertinent system settings (no desktop/menu icon, looks for the wrong
...for the copy then they are the supplier.