It's not just that American business don't trust the US government. Europoean (and other foreign) businesses really don't trust the US government. I don't how much of it was proven, but people say that the NSA was stealing internal Airbus information and sending it to Boeing. Then on top of that, do you think that any foreign government would think for two seconds about buying software that the FBI had back door keys to?
This is not entirely correct--the Airbus incident involved a sealed quote which was intercepted by the NSA for Boeing. This allowed Boeing to quote a lower amount and they won the contract (I think the country was Indonesia). France had draconian encryption laws till they found that NSA was systematically giving their company secrets to American companies.
If you have a file that will only work if authorized from a server, couldn't a packet sniffer get the info the server is passing? Then you simulate the server interaction whenever you want to use the file.
If the data is encrypted with a key, there isn't much you can do. It will be as useful as sniffing the data from an SSH2 session.
Haven't you heard? The next step is going to be fingerprints in all audio. If your soundcard hears a fingerprint in what comes out of that jack, it'll refuse to forward the audio onto the bus.
I wonder how difficult it will be to bypass the audio card itself. But I guess if you can plug in any board you want the system will not be as secure as it seems. The current CPUs are fast enough to do native signal processing.
Adobe is pushing Acrobat as a Web standardd, and has been for years. They make money by making the best, not the only, PDF software out there. They have no interest whatsoever in trying to keep people from using PDF at all.
I hope you haven't forgotten the ebook fiasco with Adobe. A company that gets someone arrested over his research paper is not so that trustworthy.
The best you might get (and this is pushing it) is a set of generic DRM requirements for hardware.
You have no way of knowing that of course, as no consumer groups are represented in the meetings in which these decisions are made. Even if they don't manage to pass all that in a single bill, they will tack it on to some obscure bill which no one reads and is passed with a voice vote.
Why not run something like WindowMaker [windowmaker.org] or BlackBox [sourceforge.net]? I've used both on a P-120 and it was tolerable as long as no processor-hogs other than X were running. KDE and GNOME are not the only window managers available!
I agree. I used a system with 16 MB RAM and GNOME without any problem till very recently. As long as you don't multitask that much you should be OK. I could even play mp3s. The hard disk would crank away for a minute once you tried to launch a new application though. If you have about 128 MB of swap you should never hit OOM.
Mac socialises its users very well as to the party line. Speaking as someone who has switched, Mac is evil. They fight hard to decomoditise hardware, software and network protocols. GET A DELL.
Or better yet, get a white box system with cheap components. I bought a Plextor 24x system for $220 and Windows 2000 fails to burn CDs after a few hours of uptime. I have to reboot my system. I have no problems with a $30 LiteOn system. And the drives on the iMac are the much less reliable notebook type.
They are being used for Perl script development and LDAP configuration testing, mostly.
I guess binary compatibility is not that important then. Still may catch some obscure bug though. And I am sure no would want to develop on one platform and deploy and test on another.
I have an orange iMac that's been running my Apartment building's mail and DNS servers continuously for just under two years. And it's running MacOS 9.
Does this mean that you never rebooted it during the past two years? Or is it like the Windows uptimes where "scheduled" reboots are not counted?
Since that is your measure of "better", then you have to agree this makes my iMac better than your Athlon, eh? We'll all await your capitulation on this point.
performance + price + stability. I am sure your iMac cost you more than $1000 when you bought it.
Oh, and I'd like to see specifically *where* you bought a pre-packaged 1ghz Athlon system for $410 - I'd like to get one myself. I'm sure these guys have a website or mailer somewhere. Unless of course you pulled this story out of your ass. Which seems to be happening a *lot* on/. today.
The fine folks at mpipc.com will sell you such a system with support. Base systems start at $170.
Are there any websites for "home users" of Linux? Are there any "Linux Home" magazines? Do most Linux user groups consist of a cross-section of people you might find at the local mall? If you sat on the post office steps in your local town and asked any ten random entrants whether they knew what Linux was, how many would give you an affirmative answer?
You should hang out in the Mandrake newsgroups and you would find that the answer to most of these questions is yes. If they are only perceptions, they can be changed, albeit slowly, as Linux doesn't have a huge marketing budget. I come across many people who haven't used Linux since '96 and I show them my current Mandrake desktop and most are really impressed. You have to get the information out there.
There are worse things to be tied to. At least Apple has a reputation for making quality hardware.
Do flaming powerbooks count as high quality hardware? I don't know where you get your information from--AFAIK they seem to be using the same components as others (no more SCSI etc.) And the default warranty was 1 year long before it was implemented by PC makers.
Since if a program is available only for Windows, a Mac user would need to buy another computer to run it (costs around $1000-$2000 for a mid-range system), while a GNU/Linux user using a PC only can make his/her machine dual-boot (cost of Windows $329 (?), less if you're a pirate... arr, mateys! ). Since the GNU/Linux users have a feasible way to run the program, companies won't consider a port necessary.
I thought Mac users had some software for running windows programs? (Virtual PC or some such) ?
I simply find it hard to believe that there are more Linux desktop users than Mac desktop users. For one thing, what are all those supposed Linux desktop users *doing* with their machines. I'm not saying this as flame bait, but while I love Linux for server and development work, most people simply equate Linux with "geek stuff".
This is pure flame bait if I've ever seen one. If you have used Linux any time in the past two years you would see that you would never have to go to the command line (unless you wanted to). As for what people would do--they would do the same thing they do in Windows--browse the web, do online shopping, check mail, and edit and print documents. Posting on slashdot is optional of course.
I love Linux. I ran it for 2 years as my desktop OS for development at work and at home. But I have worked at mega-corporations and tiny companies, and I have NEVER seen a non-geek running Linux. I, like many of you, like to be able to compile my own software from the source.
So you run Linux and since you are so smart, ordinary people wouldn't be able to run it at all. Somehow I don't see the logic. And I don't see what is so big about compiling your own software (which is quite simple with Gentoo). I have seen non-geeks use Linux, for its simplicity no less. For them it is a big deal that it doesn't crash, doesn't give errors with strange hex codes, and doesn't get infected with the latest virus. YMMV of course.
Other than the fact that Linux is NOT Unix, but merely a clone.
On what do you base this? Does having a POSIX layer count as UN*X? In that you could say that Windows is UN*X too. Linux is as close as anything gets to UN*X.
I'll give Apple one thing: If you think Apple hardware is fscking expensive, try buying a new Sun workstation [sun.com]! I could put a good down payment on a car for that much!
A new SUN workstation will cost you about 1000 ($600 with an educational discount).
Why do we insist upon parading Linux around as the "spokesmodel" for the open-source movement? Wouldn't the advancement of open-source efforts be better served and made more visible by combining the efforts of Linux, *BSD, Darwin/OS X, and other open-source O/Ses, and comparing their collective advance against the Evil Empire?
Whether or not Darwin is open source is not really an issue. Most people who used Apple machines couldn't care less. And Apple has withdrawn almost all the developers working on FreeBSD (so much for the BSD userland). OS X is yet another proprietary OS.
The company where I now work buys laptops from IBM for $1400 each, and desktops from Sun for $1000 or so or from Dell for $1000 or so. These boxes are typically underconfigured, and about comparable to the $800 iMacs (which are not "stripped" or "feature-poor" in any reasonable sense) in features.
The $1000 SUNs are actual 64 bit machines running the same software as you enterprise systems. I am sure they are not being used to render PhotoShop images.
Apple is actually right in the cases where they are trying to defend their intelectual property, even though you - or the copycats - might think otherwise. Poor clones hurt Apple's image much like cheap bootlegs or fake clothes hurt the original brands.
How does this hurt Apple? Is there anyone out there who thinks that this product is from Apple?
Gee, something to think about then before you go off and make a derivative work.
Apple being the king of Look and Feel lawsuits would sue everyone if they had the chance. And what it the derivative work you speak. And you thought software patents were bad.
And considering that Apple was spending a lot of time playing up Watson (to the point of offering the programmer a job working for them), I think they behaved as well as could be expected.
You should check out what Arstechnica has to say about this. And the reason the Watson programmer didn't take up the offer. They sure feel that they were ripped off.
For someone who is writing a text editor to blame the limitations of the kernel of the operating system on which it runs for lack of functionality is simply looking for excuses and is, in reality, a case of barking up the wrong tree (though he does mention a reference to a very old misfeature with regard 'piping', though there are/were very easy other ways to do the very same thing).
Application programmers run into kernel limitations all the time. You should take a look at all the features offered by solaris to see what can be put in there.
Though I don't know him, the fact that he has now left development and gone to 'Database Administrator' speaks volumes to me about his ability to strategically plan product development, and his proficiency as a developer. I don't like to be critical of someone I haven't met, but that is the distinct impression I get.
As he has noted, the hasn't abandoned software development altogether and has a lot of free time which he can use to develop software.
Slashdot Mirror
It's not just that American business don't trust the US government. Europoean (and other foreign) businesses really don't trust the US government. I don't how much of it was proven, but people say that the NSA was stealing internal Airbus information and sending it to Boeing. Then on top of that, do you think that any foreign government would think for two seconds about buying software that the FBI had back door keys to?
This is not entirely correct--the Airbus incident involved a sealed quote which was intercepted by the NSA for Boeing. This allowed Boeing to quote a lower amount and they won the contract (I think the country was Indonesia). France had draconian encryption laws till they found that NSA was systematically giving their company secrets to American companies.
If you have a file that will only work if authorized from a server, couldn't a packet sniffer get the info the server is passing? Then you simulate the server interaction whenever you want to use the file.
If the data is encrypted with a key, there isn't much you can do. It will be as useful as sniffing the data from an SSH2 session.
Haven't you heard? The next step is going to be fingerprints in all audio. If your soundcard hears a fingerprint in what comes out of that jack, it'll refuse to forward the audio onto the bus.
I wonder how difficult it will be to bypass the audio card itself. But I guess if you can plug in any board you want the system will not be as secure as it seems. The current CPUs are fast enough to do native signal processing.
Really? Well since you put it that way, I'm officially changing my stance on hardware DRM and going for full compliance!
You wish! Most likely you will be redirected to an empty page. If you are lucky you will get a message asking you to upgrade your browser.
Adobe is pushing Acrobat as a Web standardd, and has been for years. They make money by making the best, not the only, PDF software out there. They have no interest whatsoever in trying to keep people from using PDF at all.
I hope you haven't forgotten the ebook fiasco with Adobe. A company that gets someone arrested over his research paper is not so that trustworthy.
The best you might get (and this is pushing it) is a set of generic DRM requirements for hardware.
You have no way of knowing that of course, as no consumer groups are represented in the meetings in which these decisions are made. Even if they don't manage to pass all that in a single bill, they will tack it on to some obscure bill which no one reads and is passed with a voice vote.
Why not run something like WindowMaker [windowmaker.org] or BlackBox [sourceforge.net]? I've used both on a P-120 and it was tolerable as long as no processor-hogs other than X were running. KDE and GNOME are not the only window managers available!
I agree. I used a system with 16 MB RAM and GNOME without any problem till very recently. As long as you don't multitask that much you should be OK. I could even play mp3s. The hard disk would crank away for a minute once you tried to launch a new application though. If you have about 128 MB of swap you should never hit OOM.
Mac socialises its users very well as to the party line. Speaking as someone who has switched, Mac is evil. They fight hard to decomoditise hardware, software and network protocols. GET A DELL.
Or better yet, get a white box system with cheap components. I bought a Plextor 24x system for $220 and Windows 2000 fails to burn CDs after a few hours of uptime. I have to reboot my system. I have no problems with a $30 LiteOn system. And the drives on the iMac are the much less reliable notebook type.
They are being used for Perl script development and LDAP configuration testing, mostly.
I guess binary compatibility is not that important then. Still may catch some obscure bug though. And I am sure no would want to develop on one platform and deploy and test on another.
I have an orange iMac that's been running my Apartment building's mail and DNS servers continuously for just under two years. And it's running MacOS 9.
Does this mean that you never rebooted it during the past two years? Or is it like the Windows uptimes where "scheduled" reboots are not counted?
Since that is your measure of "better", then you have to agree this makes my iMac better than your Athlon, eh? We'll all await your capitulation on this point.
performance + price + stability. I am sure your iMac cost you more than $1000 when you bought it.
Oh, and I'd like to see specifically *where* you bought a pre-packaged 1ghz Athlon system for $410 - I'd like to get one myself. I'm sure these guys have a website or mailer somewhere. Unless of course you pulled this story out of your ass. Which seems to be happening a *lot* on /. today.
The fine folks at mpipc.com will sell you such a system with support. Base systems start at $170.
Are there any websites for "home users" of Linux? Are there any "Linux Home" magazines? Do most Linux user groups consist of a cross-section of people you might find at the local mall? If you sat on the post office steps in your local town and asked any ten random entrants whether they knew what Linux was, how many would give you an affirmative answer?
You should hang out in the Mandrake newsgroups and you would find that the answer to most of these questions is yes. If they are only perceptions, they can be changed, albeit slowly, as Linux doesn't have a huge marketing budget. I come across many people who haven't used Linux since '96 and I show them my current Mandrake desktop and most are really impressed. You have to get the information out there.
In what way is this mythical Athlon you talk about "better"
My 1 GHz Athlon system cost me exactly $410 and it had an uptime of 350 days before being rebooted due to a power failure. Not exactly flaky.
There are worse things to be tied to. At least Apple has a reputation for making quality hardware.
Do flaming powerbooks count as high quality hardware? I don't know where you get your information from--AFAIK they seem to be using the same components as others (no more SCSI etc.) And the default warranty was 1 year long before it was implemented by PC makers.
Since if a program is available only for Windows, a Mac user would need to buy another computer to run it (costs around $1000-$2000 for a mid-range system), while a GNU/Linux user using a PC only can make his/her machine dual-boot (cost of Windows $329 (?), less if you're a pirate... arr, mateys! ). Since the GNU/Linux users have a feasible way to run the program, companies won't consider a port necessary.
I thought Mac users had some software for running windows programs? (Virtual PC or some such) ?
I simply find it hard to believe that there are more Linux desktop users than Mac desktop users. For one thing, what are all those supposed Linux desktop users *doing* with their machines. I'm not saying this as flame bait, but while I love Linux for server and development work, most people simply equate Linux with "geek stuff".
This is pure flame bait if I've ever seen one. If you have used Linux any time in the past two years you would see that you would never have to go to the command line (unless you wanted to). As for what people would do--they would do the same thing they do in Windows--browse the web, do online shopping, check mail, and edit and print documents. Posting on slashdot is optional of course.
I love Linux. I ran it for 2 years as my desktop OS for development at work and at home. But I have worked at mega-corporations and tiny companies, and I have NEVER seen a non-geek running Linux. I, like many of you, like to be able to compile my own software from the source.
So you run Linux and since you are so smart, ordinary people wouldn't be able to run it at all. Somehow I don't see the logic. And I don't see what is so big about compiling your own software (which is quite simple with Gentoo). I have seen non-geeks use Linux, for its simplicity no less. For them it is a big deal that it doesn't crash, doesn't give errors with strange hex codes, and doesn't get infected with the latest virus. YMMV of course.
Other than the fact that Linux is NOT Unix, but merely a clone.
On what do you base this? Does having a POSIX layer count as UN*X? In that you could say that Windows is UN*X too. Linux is as close as anything gets to UN*X.
I'll give Apple one thing: If you think Apple hardware is fscking expensive, try buying a new Sun workstation [sun.com]! I could put a good down payment on a car for that much!
A new SUN workstation will cost you about 1000 ($600 with an educational discount).
Why do we insist upon parading Linux around as the "spokesmodel" for the open-source movement? Wouldn't the advancement of open-source efforts be better served and made more visible by combining the efforts of Linux, *BSD, Darwin/OS X, and other open-source O/Ses, and comparing their collective advance against the Evil Empire?
Whether or not Darwin is open source is not really an issue. Most people who used Apple machines couldn't care less. And Apple has withdrawn almost all the developers working on FreeBSD (so much for the BSD userland). OS X is yet another proprietary OS.
The company where I now work buys laptops from IBM for $1400 each, and desktops from Sun for $1000 or so or from Dell for $1000 or so. These boxes are typically underconfigured, and about comparable to the $800 iMacs (which are not "stripped" or "feature-poor" in any reasonable sense) in features.
The $1000 SUNs are actual 64 bit machines running the same software as you enterprise systems. I am sure they are not being used to render PhotoShop images.
Decent Mac systems are available for $800 or so new.
iMacs are not decent systems. You can buy a top of the line Athlon (better than a G4) machine for that price.
Apple is actually right in the cases where they are trying to defend their intelectual property, even though you - or the copycats - might think otherwise. Poor clones hurt Apple's image much like cheap bootlegs or fake clothes hurt the original brands.
How does this hurt Apple? Is there anyone out there who thinks that this product is from Apple?
Gee, something to think about then before you go off and make a derivative work.
Apple being the king of Look and Feel lawsuits would sue everyone if they had the chance. And what it the derivative work you speak. And you thought software patents were bad.
And considering that Apple was spending a lot of time playing up Watson (to the point of offering the programmer a job working for them), I think they behaved as well as could be expected.
You should check out what Arstechnica has to say about this. And the reason the Watson programmer didn't take up the offer. They sure feel that they were ripped off.
And Linux users, who won't pay for anything, certainly wouldn't pay for a new text editor.
Nice troll. I guess you don't consider RedHat, Mandrake and others as Linux, so the people buying these wouldn't count.
Is that it? What's the problem? Not enough free editors to choose from? You need to hand over money for buggy and unpopular editors as well?
The comments on cross platform software development were probably more relevant ;-)
For someone who is writing a text editor to blame the limitations of the kernel of the operating system on which it runs for lack of functionality is simply looking for excuses and is, in reality, a case of barking up the wrong tree (though he does mention a reference to a very old misfeature with regard 'piping', though there are/were very easy other ways to do the very same thing).
Application programmers run into kernel limitations all the time. You should take a look at all the features offered by solaris to see what can be put in there.
Though I don't know him, the fact that he has now left development and gone to 'Database Administrator' speaks volumes to me about his ability to strategically plan product development, and his proficiency as a developer. I don't like to be critical of someone I haven't met, but that is the distinct impression I get.
As he has noted, the hasn't abandoned software development altogether and has a lot of free time which he can use to develop software.