> he whole problem is that people and entities with more money, have more > access (and more influence) than people that don't have money. Last I > checked, the government's role is to serve the interests of ALL > citizens, not just those with money.
Except you are forgetting an important detail. We little people already have a way to compete, it is called the PAC. Why do you think we slashdotters donate to the EFF? So they can combine our $20 contributions and not only speak Truth to Power, they can do real lobbying. The NRA has stood up to determined and well funded efforts to eliminate the 2nd Amendment powered mostly by small annual memberships. Same goes for the AARP, labor unions, Greenpeace, etc. on every portion of the political spectrum. Yes Exxonmobile can fund its share of like minded congresscritters, but so can the Sierra Club.
And it isn't JUST the money a PAC can wield, the fact they have so many REGISTERED VOTERS fired up enough to write a check does not go unnoticed by any congresscritter who plans on making elected office a longterm career choice. Texaco can money launder you a hundred thousand dollars, Greenpeace can hook you up with fifty thousand in cash AND a mailing list of a few thousand registered voters from your district to draw additional contributions and campaign workers from.
> I'm more curious to see the part of the Constitution that defines > contributing money to a political party/candidate as an act of "speech".
So it is your contention that the 1st Amendment only protects your right to stand on a streetcorner and yell, "Bush is a lying bastard, for the love of God, don't reelect this moron!" But all of the following acts are NOT protected speech:
1. Using your PC to print flyers with the above (and perhaps some reasons why you feel that way) and spattering them all over your town.
2. Printing iron ons and sticking them on T-Shirts to pass around to your friends.
3. Placing the artwork on Cafe-Press so more people than you can personally print shirts for can buy one.
4. As volume exceeds what it is practical to run on your little inkjet, carrying one down to the local print shop and having 10,000 run off.
5. Buying radio ads denouncing your hated Foe.
6. Getting together with everyone at work who also HATES BUSH with the same passion you do and buy a few TV spots on the local cable system.
7. Get a few more together and buy an ad on the local TV station.
8. Get together with a few million at move-on.org and buy a metric buttload of TV time.
9. Convince your millionaire uncle to plonk down a cool million to the Kerry campaign, because the world is going to fucking END is Bush gets reelected!
As for me, I think all nine should be protected by the 1st Amendment because Free Speech should be as close to absolute as it can possibly be. But since you obviously don't agree with me, where do YOU draw the line?
Harry Reid? Minority Whip Harry Reid? Ain't the Democrats (along with a certain camerahogging grandstanding RINO) the ones who revoked the 1st Amendment in the first place with McCain/Feingold?
Sorry, but I'll wait a few days to see what sort of poison pill is buried down in the language of the bill before rejoicing too loudly.
How about a much simpler way to ensure the Feds keep their grubby paws off of our Internet?
Something with an old school charm in the phrasing. Dunno, how about:
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
And if that one doesn't work I guess there ain't anything to stop Democrats from stealing our liberties.
No they don't. We both have to make certain changes to remove/replace trademarks, etc. While we both try to ensure compatibility, neither of us can make any warranty to that effect. The difference is I admit that up front.
> what is WhiteBox providing over either of these existing and > established offerings?
The better question is What is Centos offering since WBEL first appeared months ahead of em. But it misses the point. They exist because they want to, same as me. I enjoy the challenge and have learned a lot. Eventually it might make sense to merge somehow, but I am in no particular hurry because each is aiming a little differenty.
Whitebox aims to be a 100% free rebuild of RHEL. The key word being rebuild. It aims to be easy to rebuild by being self hosting. This means even if I drop off the face of the earth you can probably rebuild errata yourself. I only support i386 and x86_64 because I believe i386 is the present and x86_64 is the future, the other ports are too niche and/or don't NEED a free clone. Jeeze people, if you can afford an IBM mainframe can't ya throw RH a bone?
Tao aims at being as close of a clone of RHEL as possible. Especially for their rebuild of RHEL3 that means some packages built on RHL9, some on RHEL, etc. because many packages in RHEL3 were bit for bit the same packages from RHL9.
Centos seems to want to have all of the ports, not really sure of their build philosophy. They are asking for money already though.
Scientific/Fermi Linux are big into making it easy to roll a site specific version. Very handy.
Lineox? Cheaper per seat licenses without much of a support organization to show for it. Or maybe I just haven't seen their 'value proposition.'
I know this thread is now dead, but I was out of town when the/. hit and this does need correcting since it got modded +5....
> It is important to note that Red Hat eningeers have actually helped > put White Box out.
In that they provide their SRPMS under the terms of the GPL, even their own stuff that they wouldn't HAVE to do that for, yes White Box (or any of the other rebuilds) would not exist without their generous contributions to the Free Software community. But for the record, no employee of Red Hat, Inc has directly contributed to White Box Enterprise Linux. I have exchanged a couple of emails in the course of bug sumbissions, etc, but that is it.
White Box Enterprise Linux is NOT endorsed, supported or otherwise related to Red Hat, Inc. and no such association should be implied or inferred.
> Pop quiz: which of these people is a Republican: > > * McCain > * Feingold
Sen Feingold is a Democrat and Sen McCain is whatis known as a RINO (republican In Name Only) who was the preferred candidate of the mainstream (read that as Democratic Party aparatus) press during the 2000 primary Republican Primaries.
> Quiz number 2: Which of the following Soviet dictators signed the > McCain-Feingold act into law:
Yes and we conservatives are pissed about Bush signing it. But to give him a little slack he did have fairly sound tactical reasons for it. He reasoned correctly that a veto would be hung around his neck like an albatross for sis being a 'tool of special interests' while signing it was safe since it is patently in violation of the 1st Amendment. His mistake was underestimating in just how low esteem Democrats hold the US Constituition.
> Final question, regarding tolerance of other viewpoints: which of the > following prominent politicians issued a threat on Thursday against > any federal judge who dared oppose his wishes?
Kinda twisting his words more than a bit aren't you? But at any rate I have no problem with making a public anouncement that the legislative branch is mad as hell and ready to make judges pay a price for usurping the lawmaking powers that are NOT the province of judges. Regardless how you believe on a lot of issues, the courts were NOT where laws regarding them should have issued from.
Why should anyone be suprised when Sodom on the Coast starts acting like Soviet Russia? Same sort of "Freedom of Speech is too dangerous to be allowed for non-Party members" crowd of Democrats who gave us McCain/Feingold.
Democrats are the most intolerant bunch of pricks since the Spanish Inquisition. The demand tolerance for any point of view they approve of and violently suppress any disenting viewpoints. And if any of you Jr Socialists here on Slashdot haven't sussed that out yet all I can say is "Wake up and smell the coffee."
> They don't need a JVM that bad, they'll drop OO.o altogether..
Exactly. Unless GJC can be brought to a level where it can support OO.o 2.0 easier than bringing Gnumeric/Abiword or KOffice up to snuff they will ditch OO. And good riddence, it sorta works but that is about the best anyone has ever said about it.
> Java license specifically allows you distribution of the JRE with your > products as long as you dont mess with it and it is required to run your > program.
No it doesn't. That license is a complicated bitch, go read and understand before you open your piehole. For example, NO non-commercial linux distro has been able to find a way to include the Sun JRE. I know, I looked into it for White Box Enterprise Linux (a RHEL rebuild). It just can't be done. So when OO.o 2 becomes standard, it would have to exit my distribution. Of course since I'm a RedHat Rebuild and RH is a 100% Free Software believing company I expect they are already desperately redoubling their efforts in the GCJ dept, otherwise THEY are going to be forced to dump OO.o. While using Java might have made life a little easier for the OO.o devels it is going to make life a living hell for the distros and end users.
This is why Java has zero place anywhere near a Free Software OR Open Source operation. It ain't Free OR Open. Too bad a lot people were too stupid to read the fscking license before they invested so much in Java they now are forced to willfully ignore the problem.
Btw, this is EXACTLY the situation we would have been in had another certain band of morons had their way with ignoring the problems with a certain C++ toolkit that wasn't Free Software. Instead certain clueful people started a competing free version way back when it was a lot easier, and forced that certain C++ toolkit to now also be Free Software.
I suspect that replacing Java will, in the end, prove as futile as freeQt was, but replacing OO.o is a goal that is achievable. Gnumeric and Abiword are already fairly far along, as is KOffice.
Note I mean Java the platform. Java the language is pretty much just abother language that GCC can munch and most of the libs will eventually get GNU replacements. But Java the platform is a lot more than just that whch is why I doubt a 100% Free Software drop in replacement will ever happen so long as Sun opposes it.
I just hope Red Hat doesn't get tired of spending millions correcting the mistakes of shortsighted morons who keep repeating the same mistakes over and over again.
> I doubt it'd hit the AFP much (or any agency) if their own sites were > totally blacklisted by Google.
Depends just how much Google wanted to make an object lesson of them. Remove ANY page anywhere with material from AFP. Basically, to Google AFP wouldn't exist anymore and for most intents and purposes if it ain't on Google it ain't on the Internet. How long would news organizations pay AFP for content nobody would ever see online?
And if France (and Germany, I haven't forgot them either when they harrassed Yahoo! and eBay) doesn't stop this practice of trying to make American companies subject to their wierd laws it is getting time to just pull the fibers connecting France to the rest of the world. They need the world a hell of a lot more than the world needs them.
> What if the alternative is not being able to download legally at all?
Then so be it. They own the copyright and can decide not to sell copies of songs over the Internet. But unless they plan to spend millions searching out talent, renting studio time and mastering a CD only to lock it in a vault and never let anyone listen to it they have to sell it somewhere. And they have to sell it in a format and at a price we the customer is willing to accept. I like the current CD model, especially now that discount retailers are allowed to slash prices again. (Thank you DOJ anti-trust division!)
Given a choice of useless compressed DRMed downloads and having an uncompressed 44.1K/16bit CD on my doorstep a couple of days later I'll take the CD and so will a lot of people. The only thing that would make DRMed downloads worth it to me was if it were REALLY cheep. Cheap enough to use as throwaway samples just to see if I wanted to buy the CD. But I'd never in a million years consider archiving DRMed material.
> Personally I think Blu-Ray will win out, between the backing of Apple > on the computer front and Sony/Disney on the media front.
Yea, I just love the way DVD-R crushed DVD+R because of Apple's early backing of the format. And Sony's Betamax and MemoryStick formats totally dominate industry!
The battle will be over the second one camp can read (even if they can't write) the other's format. The DVD+-RW drive was the answer to the problem of dualing formats and since both of these latest are still using the same physical media the same solution will occur to a manufacturer eventually, i.e. join BOTH consortia and merge em in a single product.
> So if you are not writing code of OSS then you are not entitled to an opinion?
Talk about an inability to read.....
I said she should quit her vague bitching and DO something. Given that the typical devel is lacking in 'people' skills, whining that THEY aren't running polls and focus groups to discover what the mythical 'typical clueless end user' wants is pointless. She, on the other hand, claims to undertand these people so if she wants things to improve she should get off her butt and act as an interface between the end users and devels. Talk to these users, learn what they actually suffer from a lack of and make specific feature requests. But even then she shouldn't get too offended when an idea gets shot down. Not being a devel she has no way of really knowing when a suggestion would be a major PITA or not.
Those who aren't willing to CONTRIBUTE to an Open Source/Free Software project are not entitled to an opinion. But those who do not write code can still contribute. They can test and report bugs, write documentation, maintain infrastructure, help work the mailing lists and answer the easy questions to free up the devels time, contribute storage & bandwidth, cash, etc. Bitching without a willingness to enter the trenches first isn't a positive contribution, but it does appear to generate pageviews.
> (as in too big, too slow, too much like Windows, too inefficient to work in,...
I hear ya. GNOME is hellbent on cloning Windows internals while 'innovating' the look & feel (ignoring the whole spatial nautilus fiasco) while KDE is hellbent on cloning the look & feel of Windows while pushing new innovative internals, even if tied to C++ a little too tightly for my taste.
Why can't we get them to swap their bad halves with each other and have a desktop pushing innovative internals AND new ideas in appearance while the other effort focuses on cloning Windows inside and out atop a *NIX base.... Call it OS W. (ducking)
No, she was always a troll. She has delusions of relevance, understanding nothing about how and why OS/FS is created.
If she had a clue and wanted to do something useful she would quit her bitching and DO something. If she doesn't think the GNOME devels are going in the right direction and end user needs aren't being met, then DO something, talk is cheap in the Open Source world, show us a willingness to get your hands dirty and people will want to talk.
Devels aren't generally focus group types, they aren't normally 'people' people. So why doesn't she do what she claims to be good at and talk to these unwashed masses of end users she claims to speak for, find out specifically what they are crying out for and make concrete feature requests backed up by these user's problems? Because that would be hard WORK and wouldn't generate nearly as many pageviews on her website, which is what her job really is; stirring the pot and generating lots of traffic. Think Dvorak without the star power that comes from trolling for ZD for decades.
> why he was givng LimeWire such a clean bill of health, when my > experience has not been so good.
I too remember helping Windows victims recover from being assaulted by LimeWire in the past. But they have seen the light and repented of their wickedness, including no spy/adware with more recent versions; and the software itself is Free Software, available under the GNU GPLv2. They even have a CVS repository. With those conditions, spyware would be a bit hard to get away with.
Go look at www.limewire.com and then www.limewire.org and see for yourself.
It makes perfect sense for Limewire to pay people to research the scum who compete against them in the P2P space and expose them. It ain't libel when it is true ya know, and the other players really are pond scum trying to get rich off of wanton copyright infringement by selling the warez kidz' souls to Claria. (Not that LimeWire isn't also encouraging the same infringement.... but they are now Free Software developers ya know; heros of the Open Source Revolution and all that jazz. And I have downloaded legit stuff from P2P so I don't have a problem with them existing.)
> I know plenty of managers who won't let me use Open Source on their > projects because they think all Open Source has a viral license > such as GPL.
No I won't laugh, I know all about the "Dilbert Principle" where the incompetent are put into management where it is thought they will cause the least damage. But it really is silly for anyone to say something like that. They really should be bright enough to understand when a license like the GPL is a problem for a commercial developer and when it isn't, this isn't 1995 anymore.
There are many cases where using GPL code in a commercial context is perfectly OK, see the example of Microsoft distributing the entire GNU toolchain for Windows NT 3.x as part of the POSIX subsystem. There are of course other cases where you could get into trouble, if you need to comingle code your company wishes to keep secret with GPL code would be the exaxmple for the problem case.
> Essentialy I write GPL software and I cannot use it in any > commercial projects.
Maybe you can. Maybe you can't depends on many variables. If it is code you write 100% yourself you can dual license it. If you wish to accept outside contributions and bugfixes while retaining the right to exploit the code commercially, the MPL was written just for you. If you want to reuse someone else's GPL code with additions by you, you are a little more limited but then you can't use other people's work without their permission now can you? Or are you one of those rat bastards who want everything given to you while expecting to reap huge windfalls off of some glue code to stick a bunch of stuff other people did together?
Remember, Linksys used a Linux based firmware and while they took a bit of whacking to get em to release the code according to the GPL it certainlt hasn't hurt sales of their hardware. So you can make money selling GPL software if you bundle it with hardware, just as one real world example.
> As someone who's method of feeding my newborn baby is writing > software you'll have to drag me kicking and screaming to work > on any GPL'd code.
Oh really. So if someone hired you to put together an embedded product like the router above you would reinvent the wheel rather than use Linux and/or busybox? Why? And if you did use it you would refuse to implement a single bugfix or additional feature in those parts on the grounds that you would have to share that part of your code? Why?
I'm basically a sysadmin who doesn't do a whole lot of coding, but on the occasions I have done some for people it has been GPLed code. Here is how I explained it to them:
"Ok, I'm NOT assigning you the copyright on this stuff, you really wouldn't want to see my pricetag on THAT. Because frankly I plan to be freely ripping parts of what I did for you out and reusing it in the future. Not to mention that I probably pulled IN a boatload of code from other GPLed source that I'd have to rewrite. No, I'm selling you my time to write it for you to your exact specs, my time to install and maintain, etc and bluntly, my knowledge of where those handy GPL 'free' bits were and how to stitch it all together. I'm also selling you a COPY of the software just like you had bought it from anyone else in the business of selling software. The only difference is that instead of the usual dread EULA I'm licensing it to you under the GPL.
"The benefit to you is that if I'm no longer available you can hire anyone else you wish and not worry about whether they are allowed to install a copy on their office machine. You won't worry about source escrow, etc either. Heck, YOU could sell copies yourself as a sideline but face it, if this stuff was solving a common problem you could have bought a copy off the rack cheaper than I cost you so there aren't likely to be many takers. The fact that I could also put up a copy on my ftp site is of no concern to you, because like I just said, you are only customer #1 for this software I wrote
Yes having a setup for LDAP with SAMBA tied in would be a plus, you have to consider why it hasen't happened yet.
Only fairly large shops NEED that and they only need to set it up once. The existing howtos appear to be addressing that need well enough that it has not become a big enough itch for anyone to scratch. Again, because once you know enough about it to write the wizards to make setting it all up easy, you have your site done and will probably will never need to do it again. So until a distro vendor sees it as a big enough selling feature to undertake the work I doubt it will happen.
If you aren't the one in charge, great you are mostly off the hook. But the idiot in charge most certainly qualifies for the abuse I was dealing out. And if you aren't adding your voice to the call for ditching IE then yes indeed you are part of the problem.
> but we can't rewrite all those apps without investing massive cash
But you CAN lock IE's Internet zone to deny ALL access, except for sites that are company critical AND require IE. Then install FireFox on all desktops and require it's use for any outside access. This should be considered baseline IT security considering the frequency of exploits against IE. Again, since you aren't the one responsible you are only at fault for not recommending a better course of action. If they are going to fire you for having an opinion it has to be a crappy place to work.
Your company probably can't afford to rewrite those apps and switch cold turkey. But you could announce a policy that any NEW development take place in a more secure environment UNLESS it requires a tie-in to a legacy app and interconnecting the two techs would be a major mess. You could also begin a longterm project to reduce dependence on technology which is known to be insecure and impossible to completely repair due to defects in core design, such as ActiveX.
Didn't sound like your shop even considers it a big enough problem to be actually expending effort to fix, and this attitude seems to include yourself. And again, is this is true then you are part of the problem.
> finish high school, get a job,
Dude, I'm OLD school fast approaching greybeard. I'm a crotchity old fart who has little time anymore for the whining and excuses that all too often pass for accepted practice in IT these days. "We know this stuff sucks, we even know there are non-broken replacements, but we are such conformists that we can't buck the conventional wisdom and frankly we now lack the credibility with the users to get them to accept our judgement anymore so everything is basically on autopilot." Hmm. could it be that you idiots have been pushing this ever more broken crap on them for the better part of two decades, each time parroting Microsoft's promotional materials that THIS time it will actually work?
Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM.... right up till they did. And when the dam finally broke most of the old mainframers got downsized as the Netware boxes rolled in by the truckload. Don't be a schmuck and be one of the ones who gets fired for buying Microsoft. Sounds like instead of the ~100 Softies playing whackamole on the worm of the week you guys have now you need to planning a migration to a dozen UNIX gurus managing thin clients for the clerical staff and some (probably Mac) workstations for the creative output. Be an early advocate of such a vision. Even if it never comes to pass, being seen as a visionary is a career plus so long as you don't cross the line to mindless zealot.
> having 2 browsers isn't a viable option either, since most of our users > would simply get confused.
Too bad for you. But I could see ActiveX and all that MS tech was crap from day one and never touched the stuff. Others were not so bright. In a free market the bad ideas and those who support/defend them eventually pay the ultimate price for mistakes of this magnitude: being outcompeted by the smarter, more techically agile ones.
Your firm is at a disadvantage now that will grow even worse in the coming years as your employer continues to throw good money after bad by incorrectly taking the advice of idiots like yourself. YOU will become as employable as a CNE and I will not worry at all over your fate since it is clear you have chosen poorly and do not belong in the IT game. The invisible hand of the marketplace will reassign you to a career more suited to your limited vision.
The cluetrain has even made it to the dimwits at the Dept of Homeland Security that using IE is harmful/fatal to the nation's IT infrastructure yet you whine that "we just can't stop using it, learning to click on a different icon would be too hard." Bah.
YOU are the IT dept, it is YOUR duty to select and deploy the Information Technology you know to be the safest and most cost effective. It is the 'artistic types' job to produce the creative output that is the lifeblood of your company, but it is NOT their job to make the technology decisions because they aren't competent to make those decisions anymore than YOU could replace the artists in their jobs. So stop whining and do your f***ing job or else don't come here bitching when your boss finally realizes you aren't and replaces you with someone who will protect the company's assets.
> What the Open Source community has is what all communist countries thus > far have lacked...
No, what the Free Software/Open Source movements have lacked are Communists in a position of power. You see, the defining feature of all Communist systems to date hasn't been the communal efforts, people have been working together to achieve common goals since the cave; what distingusihes Communism is the central planning. i.e. Communists with power (read: guns and the will to shoot disenters) deciding the allocation of manpower and physical resources to achive goals they deem desirable... all done in the NAME of the People but in reality in the name of a FEW people in the Party.
> RedHat are legally required to release the source code to everything > they release under the GPL (which is virtually everything).
Not exactly. They are required to keep anything written outside under the GPL or whatever license it was originally under. Nothing requires they continue providing the RedHat developed portions under a Free Software license except the obvious fact that they BELIEVE in Free Software. Keep that vital distinction in mind when you read some pundit slagging RH as the next Microsoft. They are intentionally releasing critical code under Free licenses, knowing full well they are enabling people like me to rebuild their entire product.
> I'm sure that the folks over at White Box Enterprise Linux really appreciate you pointing the RedHat lawyers their way.
They already know I exist so no problem.:) Unlike the Centos folks I know where the line is without needing a lawyer to read to me and already explained that to a low level RH legal troll last year when they emailed an obviously boilerplate notice. After all we happen to be a public library and therefore already deal with IP issues on a daily basis.
While I'd hate tangling with RH (because I actually like them) a lot more than I was spoiling for a fight with the CueCat idiots a few years ago, in the end it would be the same result, they would lose.
What I envision as the target user for WBEL is someone looking for what Red Hat Linux used to be, i.e. somewhere between where Fedora and RHEL are now. Longterm version stability and errata support without the annual per processor support contracts.
Which is exactly what I wanted, a disto that was "RedHat" enough that all the years of knowledge of the way they configure a UNIX/Linux box would still be valid, covered by errata long enough I wouldn't be forever rolling new versions out, but without the support contracts that I don't really need. None of my boxes are controlling millions of dollars of commerce or anything like that and I know enough to do 99% of the support myself anyway.
That is the wonderful thing about Open Source, I couldn't find what I wanted but was free to do it myself so I did. Others find it useful and we get far more valuable feedback back than the the effort of making it generally available costs us making it a win-win for everyone. And we rebuilders (me at WhiteBox, Tao, cAos, Scientific Linux, etc.) beat on the RHEL srpms in ways RH doesn't so we find new bugs and pass them back up into bugzilla so even they get something back.
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> he whole problem is that people and entities with more money, have more
> access (and more influence) than people that don't have money. Last I
> checked, the government's role is to serve the interests of ALL
> citizens, not just those with money.
Except you are forgetting an important detail. We little people already have a way to compete, it is called the PAC. Why do you think we slashdotters donate to the EFF? So they can combine our $20 contributions and not only speak Truth to Power, they can do real lobbying. The NRA has stood up to determined and well funded efforts to eliminate the 2nd Amendment powered mostly by small annual memberships. Same goes for the AARP, labor unions, Greenpeace, etc. on every portion of the political spectrum. Yes Exxonmobile can fund its share of like minded congresscritters, but so can the Sierra Club.
And it isn't JUST the money a PAC can wield, the fact they have so many REGISTERED VOTERS fired up enough to write a check does not go unnoticed by any congresscritter who plans on making elected office a longterm career choice. Texaco can money launder you a hundred thousand dollars, Greenpeace can hook you up with fifty thousand in cash AND a mailing list of a few thousand registered voters from your district to draw additional contributions and campaign workers from.
> I'm more curious to see the part of the Constitution that defines
> contributing money to a political party/candidate as an act of "speech".
So it is your contention that the 1st Amendment only protects your right to stand on a streetcorner and yell, "Bush is a lying bastard, for the love of God, don't reelect this moron!" But all of the following acts are NOT protected speech:
1. Using your PC to print flyers with the above (and perhaps some reasons why you feel that way) and spattering them all over your town.
2. Printing iron ons and sticking them on T-Shirts to pass around to your friends.
3. Placing the artwork on Cafe-Press so more people than you can personally print shirts for can buy one.
4. As volume exceeds what it is practical to run on your little inkjet, carrying one down to the local print shop and having 10,000 run off.
5. Buying radio ads denouncing your hated Foe.
6. Getting together with everyone at work who also HATES BUSH with the same passion you do and buy a few TV spots on the local cable system.
7. Get a few more together and buy an ad on the local TV station.
8. Get together with a few million at move-on.org and buy a metric buttload of TV time.
9. Convince your millionaire uncle to plonk down a cool million to the Kerry campaign, because the world is going to fucking END is Bush gets reelected!
As for me, I think all nine should be protected by the 1st Amendment because Free Speech should be as close to absolute as it can possibly be. But since you obviously don't agree with me, where do YOU draw the line?
Harry Reid? Minority Whip Harry Reid? Ain't the Democrats (along with a certain camerahogging grandstanding RINO) the ones who revoked the 1st Amendment in the first place with McCain/Feingold?
Sorry, but I'll wait a few days to see what sort of poison pill is buried down in the language of the bill before rejoicing too loudly.
How about a much simpler way to ensure the Feds keep their grubby paws off of our Internet?
Something with an old school charm in the phrasing. Dunno, how about:
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
And if that one doesn't work I guess there ain't anything to stop Democrats from stealing our liberties.
> Centos retains complete compatibility.
No they don't. We both have to make certain changes to remove/replace trademarks, etc. While we both try to ensure compatibility, neither of us can make any warranty to that effect. The difference is I admit that up front.
> what is WhiteBox providing over either of these existing and
> established offerings?
The better question is What is Centos offering since WBEL first appeared months ahead of em. But it misses the point. They exist because they want to, same as me. I enjoy the challenge and have learned a lot. Eventually it might make sense to merge somehow, but I am in no particular hurry because each is aiming a little differenty.
Whitebox aims to be a 100% free rebuild of RHEL. The key word being rebuild. It aims to be easy to rebuild by being self hosting. This means even if I drop off the face of the earth you can probably rebuild errata yourself. I only support i386 and x86_64 because I believe i386 is the present and x86_64 is the future, the other ports are too niche and/or don't NEED a free clone. Jeeze people, if you can afford an IBM mainframe can't ya throw RH a bone?
Tao aims at being as close of a clone of RHEL as possible. Especially for their rebuild of RHEL3 that means some packages built on RHL9, some on RHEL, etc. because many packages in RHEL3 were bit for bit the same packages from RHL9.
Centos seems to want to have all of the ports, not really sure of their build philosophy. They are asking for money already though.
Scientific/Fermi Linux are big into making it easy to roll a site specific version. Very handy.
Lineox? Cheaper per seat licenses without much of a support organization to show for it. Or maybe I just haven't seen their 'value proposition.'
I know this thread is now dead, but I was out of town when the /. hit and this does need correcting since it got modded +5....
> It is important to note that Red Hat eningeers have actually helped
> put White Box out.
In that they provide their SRPMS under the terms of the GPL, even their own stuff that they wouldn't HAVE to do that for, yes White Box (or any of the other rebuilds) would not exist without their generous contributions to the Free Software community. But for the record, no employee of Red Hat, Inc has directly contributed to White Box Enterprise Linux. I have exchanged a couple of emails in the course of bug sumbissions, etc, but that is it.
White Box Enterprise Linux is NOT endorsed, supported or otherwise related to Red Hat, Inc. and no such association should be implied or inferred.
> Pop quiz: which of these people is a Republican:
>
> * McCain
> * Feingold
Sen Feingold is a Democrat and Sen McCain is whatis known as a RINO (republican In Name Only) who was the preferred candidate of the mainstream (read that as Democratic Party aparatus) press during the 2000 primary Republican Primaries.
> Quiz number 2: Which of the following Soviet dictators signed the
> McCain-Feingold act into law:
Yes and we conservatives are pissed about Bush signing it. But to give him a little slack he did have fairly sound tactical reasons for it. He reasoned correctly that a veto would be hung around his neck like an albatross for sis being a 'tool of special interests' while signing it was safe since it is patently in violation of the 1st Amendment. His mistake was underestimating in just how low esteem Democrats hold the US Constituition.
> Final question, regarding tolerance of other viewpoints: which of the
> following prominent politicians issued a threat on Thursday against
> any federal judge who dared oppose his wishes?
Kinda twisting his words more than a bit aren't you? But at any rate I have no problem with making a public anouncement that the legislative branch is mad as hell and ready to make judges pay a price for usurping the lawmaking powers that are NOT the province of judges. Regardless how you believe on a lot of issues, the courts were NOT where laws regarding them should have issued from.
Why should anyone be suprised when Sodom on the Coast starts acting like Soviet Russia? Same sort of "Freedom of Speech is too dangerous to be allowed for non-Party members" crowd of Democrats who gave us McCain/Feingold.
Democrats are the most intolerant bunch of pricks since the Spanish Inquisition. The demand tolerance for any point of view they approve of and violently suppress any disenting viewpoints. And if any of you Jr Socialists here on Slashdot haven't sussed that out yet all I can say is "Wake up and smell the coffee."
> They don't need a JVM that bad, they'll drop OO.o altogether..
Exactly. Unless GJC can be brought to a level where it can support OO.o 2.0 easier than bringing Gnumeric/Abiword or KOffice up to snuff they will ditch OO. And good riddence, it sorta works but that is about the best anyone has ever said about it.
> how is it insightful?
Allow me to explain.
> Java license specifically allows you distribution of the JRE with your
> products as long as you dont mess with it and it is required to run your
> program.
No it doesn't. That license is a complicated bitch, go read and understand before you open your piehole. For example, NO non-commercial linux distro has been able to find a way to include the Sun JRE. I know, I looked into it for White Box Enterprise Linux (a RHEL rebuild). It just can't be done. So when OO.o 2 becomes standard, it would have to exit my distribution. Of course since I'm a RedHat Rebuild and RH is a 100% Free Software believing company I expect they are already desperately redoubling their efforts in the GCJ dept, otherwise THEY are going to be forced to dump OO.o. While using Java might have made life a little easier for the OO.o devels it is going to make life a living hell for the distros and end users.
This is why Java has zero place anywhere near a Free Software OR Open Source operation. It ain't Free OR Open. Too bad a lot people were too stupid to read the fscking license before they invested so much in Java they now are forced to willfully ignore the problem.
Btw, this is EXACTLY the situation we would have been in had another certain band of morons had their way with ignoring the problems with a certain C++ toolkit that wasn't Free Software. Instead certain clueful people started a competing free version way back when it was a lot easier, and forced that certain C++ toolkit to now also be Free Software.
I suspect that replacing Java will, in the end, prove as futile as freeQt was, but replacing OO.o is a goal that is achievable. Gnumeric and Abiword are already fairly far along, as is KOffice.
Note I mean Java the platform. Java the language is pretty much just abother language that GCC can munch and most of the libs will eventually get GNU replacements. But Java the platform is a lot more than just that whch is why I doubt a 100% Free Software drop in replacement will ever happen so long as Sun opposes it.
I just hope Red Hat doesn't get tired of spending millions correcting the mistakes of shortsighted morons who keep repeating the same mistakes over and over again.
> I doubt it'd hit the AFP much (or any agency) if their own sites were
> totally blacklisted by Google.
Depends just how much Google wanted to make an object lesson of them. Remove ANY page anywhere with material from AFP. Basically, to Google AFP wouldn't exist anymore and for most intents and purposes if it ain't on Google it ain't on the Internet. How long would news organizations pay AFP for content nobody would ever see online?
And if France (and Germany, I haven't forgot them either when they harrassed Yahoo! and eBay) doesn't stop this practice of trying to make American companies subject to their wierd laws it is getting time to just pull the fibers connecting France to the rest of the world. They need the world a hell of a lot more than the world needs them.
> What if the alternative is not being able to download legally at all?
Then so be it. They own the copyright and can decide not to sell copies of songs over the Internet. But unless they plan to spend millions searching out talent, renting studio time and mastering a CD only to lock it in a vault and never let anyone listen to it they have to sell it somewhere. And they have to sell it in a format and at a price we the customer is willing to accept. I like the current CD model, especially now that discount retailers are allowed to slash prices again. (Thank you DOJ anti-trust division!)
Given a choice of useless compressed DRMed downloads and having an uncompressed 44.1K/16bit CD on my doorstep a couple of days later I'll take the CD and so will a lot of people. The only thing that would make DRMed downloads worth it to me was if it were REALLY cheep. Cheap enough to use as throwaway samples just to see if I wanted to buy the CD. But I'd never in a million years consider archiving DRMed material.
> Personally I think Blu-Ray will win out, between the backing of Apple
> on the computer front and Sony/Disney on the media front.
Yea, I just love the way DVD-R crushed DVD+R because of Apple's early backing of the format. And Sony's Betamax and MemoryStick formats totally dominate industry!
The battle will be over the second one camp can read (even if they can't write) the other's format. The DVD+-RW drive was the answer to the problem of dualing formats and since both of these latest are still using the same physical media the same solution will occur to a manufacturer eventually, i.e. join BOTH consortia and merge em in a single product.
> So if you are not writing code of OSS then you are not entitled to an opinion?
Talk about an inability to read.....
I said she should quit her vague bitching and DO something. Given that the typical devel is lacking in 'people' skills, whining that THEY aren't running polls and focus groups to discover what the mythical 'typical clueless end user' wants is pointless. She, on the other hand, claims to undertand these people so if she wants things to improve she should get off her butt and act as an interface between the end users and devels. Talk to these users, learn what they actually suffer from a lack of and make specific feature requests. But even then she shouldn't get too offended when an idea gets shot down. Not being a devel she has no way of really knowing when a suggestion would be a major PITA or not.
Those who aren't willing to CONTRIBUTE to an Open Source/Free Software project are not entitled to an opinion. But those who do not write code can still contribute. They can test and report bugs, write documentation, maintain infrastructure, help work the mailing lists and answer the easy questions to free up the devels time, contribute storage & bandwidth, cash, etc. Bitching without a willingness to enter the trenches first isn't a positive contribution, but it does appear to generate pageviews.
> (as in too big, too slow, too much like Windows, too inefficient to work in,...
I hear ya. GNOME is hellbent on cloning Windows internals while 'innovating' the look & feel (ignoring the whole spatial nautilus fiasco) while KDE is hellbent on cloning the look & feel of Windows while pushing new innovative internals, even if tied to C++ a little too tightly for my taste.
Why can't we get them to swap their bad halves with each other and have a desktop pushing innovative internals AND new ideas in appearance while the other effort focuses on cloning Windows inside and out atop a *NIX base.... Call it OS W. (ducking)
No, she was always a troll. She has delusions of relevance, understanding nothing about how and why OS/FS is created.
If she had a clue and wanted to do something useful she would quit her bitching and DO something. If she doesn't think the GNOME devels are going in the right direction and end user needs aren't being met, then DO something, talk is cheap in the Open Source world, show us a willingness to get your hands dirty and people will want to talk.
Devels aren't generally focus group types, they aren't normally 'people' people. So why doesn't she do what she claims to be good at and talk to these unwashed masses of end users she claims to speak for, find out specifically what they are crying out for and make concrete feature requests backed up by these user's problems? Because that would be hard WORK and wouldn't generate nearly as many pageviews on her website, which is what her job really is; stirring the pot and generating lots of traffic. Think Dvorak without the star power that comes from trolling for ZD for decades.
Apparently CowboyNeal still cares what Eugenia thinks, but why the hell should anyone else?
/. and it is ALWAYS Eugenia trolling, this time is no exception.
Lets not feed the trolls, ok? The only time I see OSNews is when it gets a mention on
> why he was givng LimeWire such a clean bill of health, when my
> experience has not been so good.
I too remember helping Windows victims recover from being assaulted by LimeWire in the past. But they have seen the light and repented of their wickedness, including no spy/adware with more recent versions; and the software itself is Free Software, available under the GNU GPLv2. They even have a CVS repository. With those conditions, spyware would be a bit hard to get away with.
Go look at www.limewire.com and then www.limewire.org and see for yourself.
It makes perfect sense for Limewire to pay people to research the scum who compete against them in the P2P space and expose them. It ain't libel when it is true ya know, and the other players really are pond scum trying to get rich off of wanton copyright infringement by selling the warez kidz' souls to Claria. (Not that LimeWire isn't also encouraging the same infringement.... but they are now Free Software developers ya know; heros of the Open Source Revolution and all that jazz. And I have downloaded legit stuff from P2P so I don't have a problem with them existing.)
> I know plenty of managers who won't let me use Open Source on their
> projects because they think all Open Source has a viral license
> such as GPL.
No I won't laugh, I know all about the "Dilbert Principle" where the incompetent are put into management where it is thought they will cause the least damage. But it really is silly for anyone to say something like that. They really should be bright enough to understand when a license like the GPL is a problem for a commercial developer and when it isn't, this isn't 1995 anymore.
There are many cases where using GPL code in a commercial context is perfectly OK, see the example of Microsoft distributing the entire GNU toolchain for Windows NT 3.x as part of the POSIX subsystem. There are of course other cases where you could get into trouble, if you need to comingle code your company wishes to keep secret with GPL code would be the exaxmple for the problem case.
> Essentialy I write GPL software and I cannot use it in any
> commercial projects.
Maybe you can. Maybe you can't depends on many variables. If it is code you write 100% yourself you can dual license it. If you wish to accept outside contributions and bugfixes while retaining the right to exploit the code commercially, the MPL was written just for you. If you want to reuse someone else's GPL code with additions by you, you are a little more limited but then you can't use other people's work without their permission now can you? Or are you one of those rat bastards who want everything given to you while expecting to reap huge windfalls off of some glue code to stick a bunch of stuff other people did together?
Remember, Linksys used a Linux based firmware and while they took a bit of whacking to get em to release the code according to the GPL it certainlt hasn't hurt sales of their hardware. So you can make money selling GPL software if you bundle it with hardware, just as one real world example.
> As someone who's method of feeding my newborn baby is writing
> software you'll have to drag me kicking and screaming to work
> on any GPL'd code.
Oh really. So if someone hired you to put together an embedded product like the router above you would reinvent the wheel rather than use Linux and/or busybox? Why? And if you did use it you would refuse to implement a single bugfix or additional feature in those parts on the grounds that you would have to share that part of your code? Why?
I'm basically a sysadmin who doesn't do a whole lot of coding, but on the occasions I have done some for people it has been GPLed code. Here is how I explained it to them:
"Ok, I'm NOT assigning you the copyright on this stuff, you really wouldn't want to see my pricetag on THAT. Because frankly I plan to be freely ripping parts of what I did for you out and reusing it in the future. Not to mention that I probably pulled IN a boatload of code from other GPLed source that I'd have to rewrite. No, I'm selling you my time to write it for you to your exact specs, my time to install and maintain, etc and bluntly, my knowledge of where those handy GPL 'free' bits were and how to stitch it all together. I'm also selling you a COPY of the software just like you had bought it from anyone else in the business of selling software. The only difference is that instead of the usual dread EULA I'm licensing it to you under the GPL.
"The benefit to you is that if I'm no longer available you can hire anyone else you wish and not worry about whether they are allowed to install a copy on their office machine. You won't worry about source escrow, etc either. Heck, YOU could sell copies yourself as a sideline but face it, if this stuff was solving a common problem you could have bought a copy off the rack cheaper than I cost you so there aren't likely to be many takers. The fact that I could also put up a copy on my ftp site is of no concern to you, because like I just said, you are only customer #1 for this software I wrote
Yes having a setup for LDAP with SAMBA tied in would be a plus, you have to consider why it hasen't happened yet.
Only fairly large shops NEED that and they only need to set it up once. The existing howtos appear to be addressing that need well enough that it has not become a big enough itch for anyone to scratch. Again, because once you know enough about it to write the wizards to make setting it all up easy, you have your site done and will probably will never need to do it again. So until a distro vendor sees it as a big enough selling feature to undertake the work I doubt it will happen.
> Whoa. I'm the IT
If you aren't the one in charge, great you are mostly off the hook. But the idiot in charge most certainly qualifies for the abuse I was dealing out. And if you aren't adding your voice to the call for ditching IE then yes indeed you are part of the problem.
> but we can't rewrite all those apps without investing massive cash
But you CAN lock IE's Internet zone to deny ALL access, except for sites that are company critical AND require IE. Then install FireFox on all desktops and require it's use for any outside access. This should be considered baseline IT security considering the frequency of exploits against IE. Again, since you aren't the one responsible you are only at fault for not recommending a better course of action. If they are going to fire you for having an opinion it has to be a crappy place to work.
Your company probably can't afford to rewrite those apps and switch cold turkey. But you could announce a policy that any NEW development take place in a more secure environment UNLESS it requires a tie-in to a legacy app and interconnecting the two techs would be a major mess. You could also begin a longterm project to reduce dependence on technology which is known to be insecure and impossible to completely repair due to defects in core design, such as ActiveX.
Didn't sound like your shop even considers it a big enough problem to be actually expending effort to fix, and this attitude seems to include yourself. And again, is this is true then you are part of the problem.
> finish high school, get a job,
Dude, I'm OLD school fast approaching greybeard. I'm a crotchity old fart who has little time anymore for the whining and excuses that all too often pass for accepted practice in IT these days. "We know this stuff sucks, we even know there are non-broken replacements, but we are such conformists that we can't buck the conventional wisdom and frankly we now lack the credibility with the users to get them to accept our judgement anymore so everything is basically on autopilot." Hmm. could it be that you idiots have been pushing this ever more broken crap on them for the better part of two decades, each time parroting Microsoft's promotional materials that THIS time it will actually work?
Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM.... right up till they did. And when the dam finally broke most of the old mainframers got downsized as the Netware boxes rolled in by the truckload. Don't be a schmuck and be one of the ones who gets fired for buying Microsoft. Sounds like instead of the ~100 Softies playing whackamole on the worm of the week you guys have now you need to planning a migration to a dozen UNIX gurus managing thin clients for the clerical staff and some (probably Mac) workstations for the creative output. Be an early advocate of such a vision. Even if it never comes to pass, being seen as a visionary is a career plus so long as you don't cross the line to mindless zealot.
> having 2 browsers isn't a viable option either, since most of our users
> would simply get confused.
Too bad for you. But I could see ActiveX and all that MS tech was crap from day one and never touched the stuff. Others were not so bright. In a free market the bad ideas and those who support/defend them eventually pay the ultimate price for mistakes of this magnitude: being outcompeted by the smarter, more techically agile ones.
Your firm is at a disadvantage now that will grow even worse in the coming years as your employer continues to throw good money after bad by incorrectly taking the advice of idiots like yourself. YOU will become as employable as a CNE and I will not worry at all over your fate since it is clear you have chosen poorly and do not belong in the IT game. The invisible hand of the marketplace will reassign you to a career more suited to your limited vision.
The cluetrain has even made it to the dimwits at the Dept of Homeland Security that using IE is harmful/fatal to the nation's IT infrastructure yet you whine that "we just can't stop using it, learning to click on a different icon would be too hard." Bah.
YOU are the IT dept, it is YOUR duty to select and deploy the Information Technology you know to be the safest and most cost effective. It is the 'artistic types' job to produce the creative output that is the lifeblood of your company, but it is NOT their job to make the technology decisions because they aren't competent to make those decisions anymore than YOU could replace the artists in their jobs. So stop whining and do your f***ing job or else don't come here bitching when your boss finally realizes you aren't and replaces you with someone who will protect the company's assets.
> What the Open Source community has is what all communist countries thus
> far have lacked...
No, what the Free Software/Open Source movements have lacked are Communists in a position of power. You see, the defining feature of all Communist systems to date hasn't been the communal efforts, people have been working together to achieve common goals since the cave; what distingusihes Communism is the central planning. i.e. Communists with power (read: guns and the will to shoot disenters) deciding the allocation of manpower and physical resources to achive goals they deem desirable... all done in the NAME of the People but in reality in the name of a FEW people in the Party.
> RedHat are legally required to release the source code to everything
> they release under the GPL (which is virtually everything).
Not exactly. They are required to keep anything written outside under the GPL or whatever license it was originally under. Nothing requires they continue providing the RedHat developed portions under a Free Software license except the obvious fact that they BELIEVE in Free Software. Keep that vital distinction in mind when you read some pundit slagging RH as the next Microsoft. They are intentionally releasing critical code under Free licenses, knowing full well they are enabling people like me to rebuild their entire product.
> I'm sure that the folks over at White Box Enterprise Linux really appreciate you pointing the RedHat lawyers their way.
:) Unlike the Centos folks I know where the line is without needing a lawyer to read to me and already explained that to a low level RH legal troll last year when they emailed an obviously boilerplate notice. After all we happen to be a public library and therefore already deal with IP issues on a daily basis.
They already know I exist so no problem.
While I'd hate tangling with RH (because I actually like them) a lot more than I was spoiling for a fight with the CueCat idiots a few years ago, in the end it would be the same result, they would lose.
What I envision as the target user for WBEL is someone looking for what Red Hat Linux used to be, i.e. somewhere between where Fedora and RHEL are now. Longterm version stability and errata support without the annual per processor support contracts.
Which is exactly what I wanted, a disto that was "RedHat" enough that all the years of knowledge of the way they configure a UNIX/Linux box would still be valid, covered by errata long enough I wouldn't be forever rolling new versions out, but without the support contracts that I don't really need. None of my boxes are controlling millions of dollars of commerce or anything like that and I know enough to do 99% of the support myself anyway.
That is the wonderful thing about Open Source, I couldn't find what I wanted but was free to do it myself so I did. Others find it useful and we get far more valuable feedback back than the the effort of making it generally available costs us making it a win-win for everyone. And we rebuilders (me at WhiteBox, Tao, cAos, Scientific Linux, etc.) beat on the RHEL srpms in ways RH doesn't so we find new bugs and pass them back up into bugzilla so even they get something back.