Keep it simple... Don't go into things like 'linux is only a kernel'. Tell hime why it is good, i.e. not being force fed things by the marketing department of a certain big company but having choices (you could briefly mention the many distro options as an example of choice). Mention that good design is leading the developmend instead. Also think why the hell you used it yourself in the first place and more important why you kept using it. (Be carefull this answer doesn't get to geeky)
We as humanity have a finite amount of resources, which means that if I'm going to expend resources by writing software I need to get something in return, in order to provide for my family
The problem is that we are using the end product as if it were a limited resource. It is not, we use special laws like copyright to limit it by force. The real limited resource here are programmers. With the right business model you can get paid for programming regardless which license the end result is released under.
BSD style licenses allow me to get recognition (not much I haven't written a lot of Open Source) and allow me to re-use that software in my commercial projects, which benefits me and Open Source as it allows me to get buy-in from management.
GPL licenses do not. Essentialy I write GPL software and I cannot use it in any commercial projects.
BSD doesn't guarantee buy-in... management could simply take your code and release it under a non-free license. They might say 'thank you' if you are lucky.
With GPL code you can guarantee buy in: they need to license it from you (asuming you are the sole copyright holder) under a different license than the GPL and you can dictate the payment terms.
Developers can make money writting open source to...
As for the 'just for the sake of it' part: Imagine buying a new harddisk and finding that your bios doesn't support such large drives.. What are you going to do? Beg the vendor of your closed source bios to make an update for a board they consider obsolete? If the bios was open you could add support yourself. (Or alternativly pay one of those starving developers to make the changes for you)
They might have some great people working on linux but the company in general just doesn't care. It took intel a full year before they had even half decent support for their wireless chipset despite promisses that they would support it when promoting it. They refuse to release proper specs on their video chipsets in order to let X use the proper panel size on a laptop.
Ajax isn't a technology... its a cute name for a bunch of existing technologies.
Basicly they found that you could make webpages update themself without completly reloading if you trow a lot of buzzwords at it.
You could do this a long time ago without xml.... I did it a while ago for a database app.. The page contained a piece of javascript that was started when a input field changed. This triggered the loading of a external.js file that just happened to be a cgi script. This cgi script would do some database queries and generated some javascript code that would update all the other fields on the client.
The problem this thing is giving access to everyone without any authentification..... That is a really bad thing. You really don't want the whole world to have access to your shadow password file.
No, the scientists found that a part of the brain might be capable off making better use of the information comming from five senses. The article writter somehow turned this into a sixth sense and we know that good slashdot storry submitters and editors don't rtfa just like everyone else around here.
3. The interesting bit here is that the system used is likely to have been GNU Motion (which means the machine running linux). He even left the thing running in debug mode where it shows the rectangle where the motion was picked up.
I never really intended that as a debug mode... I added the rectangle to be able to quickly see in a frame what caused the events. But some might consider that debug info:)
Lots of animals can hear a lot better than us, it is not unlikely they simply heard the waves comming. As for the uneasyness it is not impossible for low frequency sounds to do some strange things with your stomach.
It might be curious, but you have to be a special kind of crackpot to drag in a global conscience.
You are basicly arguing that abolishing the patent system won't work because some people have based their business model on it..... Your wife may be out of a job and so might be some patent-office clerks and a lot of law firms, but would the world as a whole be worse?
A hundred years ago you would have argued that cars are bad because people make a living based on horses. (food on the table, solves real problems, yadda yadda)
Take a look at another thing hapening about a hundred years ago: flying. The wright brothers may be credited with the first powered flight, but the idea was hardly original. (In fact it was attempted all around the world and the mere fact that they were first is heavily disputed) The patented parts of their 'invention' (most notably their control system). A hundred years later flying has evolved in an amazing rate. This wasn't because of the patent, this was because all those other pioneers simply ignored those patents and continued experimenting. It led to a lot of nasty lawsuits and mud throwing but we came out differently. Imagine what would have happened if the wright brothers really had the power to stop all kinds of flight for a few decades. If they had been able to enforce their patents effectivly they would have had that power. You are giving an awfull lot of power to people who mostly don't deserve it at all. The biggest problem with patents is that it gives far to much credit to people simply doing their job.
Keeping bugs private doesn't prevent someone else from finding it and exploiting it. Even worse, by keeping it private you also minimize the amount of developpers who are exposed to the mistake and the fix. By knowing about it they might not make the same or a similar mistake again in their own code.
In which case Mandrake obviously failed to make it noticable enough for them to use it. You should be asking yourself WHY they didn't know about urmpi... Was it hidden to far? Was the description not good enough?
Nobody knowing about the bug doesn't make is less vulnerable.... It might make it less likely that somebody will abuse it, but the hole is still there.
Keeping it silent only works if you are the only one capable of finding it. It has been shown time after time that that isn't true.
Actually cell-phone antenna extenders are more credible than this. This is nonsense. Improving an antenna could actually work by placing elements at the right place. Although using a random sticker on a random place which is in no way matched to the actuall antenna won't work.
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UTC+530
Great, that means its practically april fools day overthere.....
Jeroen
Keep it simple... Don't go into things like 'linux is only a kernel'.
Tell hime why it is good, i.e. not being force fed things by the marketing department of a certain big company but having choices (you could briefly mention the many distro options as an example of choice).
Mention that good design is leading the developmend instead.
Also think why the hell you used it yourself in the first place and more important why you kept using it. (Be carefull this answer doesn't get to geeky)
Jeroen
Textbooks might not need much updating, but imagine the vast library their are going to be able to offer.
Jeroen
It varies between 3 and about 6 KW per sq. M
Jeroen
That is why I added that I assumed he was the sole copyright holder.
Indeed all contributers would have to agree for relicensing.
Jeroen
We as humanity have a finite amount of resources, which means that if I'm going to expend resources by writing software I need to get something in return, in order to provide for my family
The problem is that we are using the end product as if it were a limited resource. It is not, we use special laws like copyright to limit it by force.
The real limited resource here are programmers.
With the right business model you can get paid for programming regardless which license the end result is released under.
BSD style licenses allow me to get recognition (not much I haven't written a lot of Open Source) and allow me to re-use that software in my commercial projects, which benefits me and Open Source as it allows me to get buy-in from management.
GPL licenses do not. Essentialy I write GPL software and I cannot use it in any commercial projects.
BSD doesn't guarantee buy-in... management could simply take your code and release it under a non-free license. They might say 'thank you' if you are lucky.
With GPL code you can guarantee buy in: they need to license it from you (asuming you are the sole copyright holder) under a different license than the GPL and you can dictate the payment terms.
Jeroen
Developers can make money writting open source to...
As for the 'just for the sake of it' part:
Imagine buying a new harddisk and finding that your bios doesn't support such large drives..
What are you going to do? Beg the vendor of your closed source bios to make an update for a board they consider obsolete?
If the bios was open you could add support yourself. (Or alternativly pay one of those starving developers to make the changes for you)
Jeroen
Intel support sucks....
They might have some great people working on linux but the company in general just doesn't care.
It took intel a full year before they had even half decent support for their wireless chipset despite promisses that they would support it when promoting it.
They refuse to release proper specs on their video chipsets in order to let X use the proper panel size on a laptop.
Jeroen
the grandparent probably considers not installing flash as obvious.
Ajax isn't a technology... its a cute name for a bunch of existing technologies.
.js file that just happened to be a cgi script. This cgi script would do some database queries and generated some javascript code that would update all the other fields on the client.
Basicly they found that you could make webpages update themself without completly reloading if you trow a lot of buzzwords at it.
You could do this a long time ago without xml....
I did it a while ago for a database app.. The page contained a piece of javascript that was started when a input field changed. This triggered the loading of a external
Jeroen
If the cops are the only thing keeping you from smacking him you are one major asshole.
Jeroen
The problem this thing is giving access to everyone without any authentification.....
That is a really bad thing.
You really don't want the whole world to have access to your shadow password file.
Jreoen
You could still access /etc/shadow and get all the passwords. Do a little offline crack and you can ssh back in for some real damage...
Jeroen
No, the scientists found that a part of the brain might be capable off making better use of the information comming from five senses.
The article writter somehow turned this into a sixth sense and we know that good slashdot storry submitters and editors don't rtfa just like everyone else around here.
Jeroen
3. The interesting bit here is that the system used is likely to have been GNU Motion (which means the machine running linux). He even left the thing running in debug mode where it shows the rectangle where the motion was picked up.
:)
I never really intended that as a debug mode...
I added the rectangle to be able to quickly see in a frame what caused the events.
But some might consider that debug info
Jeroen
Probably not, but once the threath(?) is gone you have to stop. So no kicking while he is on the floor.
Just make sure you are not using a pre-ANSI version....
Jeroen
Lots of animals can hear a lot better than us, it is not unlikely they simply heard the waves comming.
As for the uneasyness it is not impossible for low frequency sounds to do some strange things with your stomach.
It might be curious, but you have to be a special kind of crackpot to drag in a global conscience.
Jeroen
You are basicly arguing that abolishing the patent system won't work because some people have based their business model on it.....
Your wife may be out of a job and so might be some patent-office clerks and a lot of law firms, but would the world as a whole be worse?
A hundred years ago you would have argued that cars are bad because people make a living based on horses. (food on the table, solves real problems, yadda yadda)
Take a look at another thing hapening about a hundred years ago: flying.
The wright brothers may be credited with the first powered flight, but the idea was hardly original. (In fact it was attempted all around the world and the mere fact that they were first is heavily disputed) The patented parts of their 'invention' (most notably their control system).
A hundred years later flying has evolved in an amazing rate. This wasn't because of the patent, this was because all those other pioneers simply ignored those patents and continued experimenting.
It led to a lot of nasty lawsuits and mud throwing but we came out differently.
Imagine what would have happened if the wright brothers really had the power to stop all kinds of flight for a few decades. If they had been able to enforce their patents effectivly they would have had that power. You are giving an awfull lot of power to people who mostly don't deserve it at all. The biggest problem with patents is that it gives far to much credit to people simply doing their job.
Jeroen
Keeping bugs private doesn't prevent someone else from finding it and exploiting it.
Even worse, by keeping it private you also minimize the amount of developpers who are exposed to the mistake and the fix. By knowing about it they might not make the same or a similar mistake again in their own code.
Jeroen
I think they don't know anything about urpmi...
In which case Mandrake obviously failed to make it noticable enough for them to use it.
You should be asking yourself WHY they didn't know about urmpi... Was it hidden to far? Was the description not good enough?
Jeroen
but systems are less vunerable
Nobody knowing about the bug doesn't make is less vulnerable.... It might make it less likely that somebody will abuse it, but the hole is still there.
Keeping it silent only works if you are the only one capable of finding it. It has been shown time after time that that isn't true.
Jeroen
Their explanation is a collection of buzzwords.
That is unless it works, then it'll be cool
Please adjust your bullshit filter, its leaking!
Jeroen
Actually cell-phone antenna extenders are more credible than this. This is nonsense.
Improving an antenna could actually work by placing elements at the right place. Although using a random sticker on a random place which is in no way matched to the actuall antenna won't work.
Jeroen