That was in direct response to a question regarding Affero GPL. One single question of about twenty five regarding 'software as a service'. Your article title and selective quote does tend to give an erroneous impression as to what the article was about.
-- begin quote -
Stallman discusses Free Software and GPLv3
First of all, could you remind us of what free software means?
Richard Stallman: Free software means software that respects the user's freedom. (Think of "free speech", not "free beer".) Specifically, it means you have the four essential freedoms: (1) to run the program as you wish, (2) to study the source code, and change it to make the program do what you wish, (3) to redistribute exact copies, and (4) to distribute copies of your modified versions.
What would be a good definition of the program in relation to online search resources such as Google. How would the program match up against the vagueness inherent in normal human speech patterns.
"Have you got a lot of friends ?", April 27, @02:11PM #27728771
Ok, so tell us how many of your 'friends' would stop being your 'friend' if you stopped providing free tech support. What they are saying, when they want you to fix their computer for free - is that your time is worthless !
"Come on, what's so bad in helping others if you have knowledge and, most important, time? That's how a society works, people help people"
Sure people like to help people, so tell us how many of your acquientences would do your taxes, fix your boiler, fix your washing machine and mow the lawn, all for free?
"P.S. I don't repair neighbours/friends Windows PC's too, not even if they offer me to pay for it -- it's the same boring routine over and over. I do offer Linux installation and support for no charge case they want to check it out"
Right, I was not referring to the local LUG users group or the forums. For them it's a mutual exchange of technical advice. What gets me is the gall some people get in assuming I'll fix their PC for free.
"The NY Times writes about Justin McMurry of Keller, TX, who spends up to 20 unpaid hours per week helping Verizon customers"
No way should you ever do this. If it's worth doing then it's worth getting paid for doing it. And for each McMurry out there there is one less paid job at Verizon. Same with friends or neighbours. I'll fix their PC, but only if they pay me.
"I administer several Ubuntu desktops and numerous CentOS servers. One of the biggest headaches is keeping them up-to-date with each distro's latest bugfix and security patches"
My advice is, if it ain't broke don't fix it, especially on a production server. Have two identical systems and test the latest bugfix on that, before you roll it out to the live system. You don't know what someone elses bugfix is going to break and would have no way of rolling it back.
"As for being as slick as OS X, well, spoken like somebody who obviously doesn't own a Mac"
"I am starting to prefer using my Ubuntu "Jaunty Jackalope" desktop over the similarly slick Windows 7 beta (which I am currently running full-time on one desktop) and Mac OS X Leopard operating systems, which I also use regularly"
"And the effects are mostly great (on their own), but it still lacks coherency in its design. The UI elements still look ratty, old-fashioned, and ugly.. highly-functional chicken coop"
Your experience is so totally different than the reviewer it's almost as you you were occupying a parallel Bizarro kind of universe.
'You won't be able to notice the vast improvement in Ubuntu's desktop experience over the past six months by browsing screenshot galleries of 9.04 or looking at new feature lists. What I'm talking about is that elusive slick-and-speedy feel you get from applications launching fast, windows moving around without jerkiness, and everything simply being where it should be in the user interface'
Seriously, if you think there is anything capable of being connected to the Internet that "cannot" be used for any of this nefarious crap, you're either seriously delusional, or woefully uneducated in security
Run the device from a read-only device and flush all the detritus from the cache at shutdown. Have the base system run the screen, mouse and keyboard and run the rest from a U3 type device. I'm using something similar, a bunch of portable apps on a USB stick.
'At 8 a.m. on May 4, 2001, anyone trying to access the White House Web site got an error message. By noon, whitehouse.gov was down entirely, the victim of a so-called distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack. Somewhere in the world, hackers were pinging White House servers with thousands of page requests per second, clogging the site. Also attacked were sites for the U.S. Navy and various other federal departments'
The solution is obvious, get a 'computer' that can't be hijacked to be used as part of a botnet, to launch DDOS attacks, to me co-opted in a spam farm, to be used to steal online identity and steal all your money from your bank account.
"The device is said to be in the final stages of development at the National Security Agency, which will check that its encryption software meets federal standards. It might not be ready for months"
Really, I would have thought it would be less secure after the spooks got their hands on it. As such I have corrected the title.
"The Ubuntu people are the same, if not worse (by this I refer to Canonical). They protect their trademarks aggressively. They stop websites, or spin off projects, unless they're strictly non-profit (this includes advertising)"
Where, can you provide a list of citations where Canonical caused web sites or spin off projects to be canceled.
you may use the Trademarks in association with the software product provided:
* the changes are minimal and unsubstantial, as described above..
* there is no commercial intent associated with the new product..
* the Trademark is used in a way that makes it clear that your project is a development effort related to the Ubuntu source, but that the software you are working upon is not in fact Ubuntu as distributed by the Ubuntu project..
* there is no suggestion (through words or appearance) that your project is approved, sponsored, or affiliated with Ubuntu..
"Wikipedia should know better. There is no trademark or cybersquatting issue here. First, the site is entirely noncommercial, which puts it beyond the reach of U.S. trademark law"
What ever the legalities at issue her, it is patently obvious that the owners of wikipediaart.org are trying to piggyback on the reputation of Wikipedia. They did seem to have previously host their art site directly on Wikipedia itself. Perhaps the cybersquatting issue is a little retaliation.
Just for the opening sequence alone it was worth it. It took the whole comic book/graphic novel mythology and reinvented it for the movies and placed it in the context of the time, cold war paranoia etc. It also answered the question as to what super heroes do when off duty. Why it's a good movie is - it's one of those you can watch more than once. Unlike some very bad big budget movies where you can't wait to get out of the theater.
"When Novell and Red Hat release a new version you find all cool new features on their webpages. Not so for Canonical, for example Dustin Kirkland did an amazing job with screen profiles.. No word about it on any of their websites"
They did do a Podcast that discusses screen profiles, on the ubuntupodcast website. And they do mention Ubuntu 'release parties'. Which sounds a lot more interactive than a post to a web site.
17:46: on marketing..
30:50 Dustin Kirkland on Screen Profiles..
"Wait wait wait wait... these guys actually CHARGE for Ubunghole?"
There are now three ways for you to get Ubuntu. Just choose the delivery option that works best for you: * Download now - Download the Ubuntu, * Buy on CD or DVD, * Request a free CD..
"The Joint Strike Fighter, also known as the F-35 Lightning II, is the costliest and most technically challenging weapons program the Pentagon has ever attempted. The plane, led by Lockheed Martin Corp., relies on 7.5 million lines of computer code, which the Government Accountability Office said is more than triple the amount used in the current top Air Force fighter"
I recall one where the pilot wondered what would happen if he pressed the 'gear up' lever while still on the ground. The gear retracted and the aircraft was severely damaged.
Windows costs money up front, but for non-CLI people the TCO could be lower due to the often self-explanatory interfaces. Linux is free, but I've invested quite a bit of time writing touchy-feely scripts to bridge the usability gap, and that time is money. Hell, half of my billable hours involve supporting clients' Linux servers. I haven't billed Windows support time in over 6 months
What do these Linux servers do that require constant maintenence. In my experience, once it's set up and properly configured, it just goes and goes. Can we see a sample of these scripts. Have you contributed them to a forum?
"I'll bet you forgot to tell them that a few months down the road he will have no way to install an up-to-date application unless he updates the whole system. And that he will have to update (aka reinstall) the whole system every few months, since thats the usual duration his applications officially are up to date"
What are you on - or what are you even on about. If the app works then he'll have no reason to install the 'up-to-date' version. Like, if it works, don't fix it. Contrast that to Windows where you have a fifty-fifty chance of the system coming back up after the automatic update or service pack installation. If he does need to update, then he can contact the software developer directly. Contrast that to Windows, where you talk to a call center in Mumbai or whereever or be told to wait for the next service pack/bug fix.
'I asked Ramji if he could explain Microsoft's open-source strategy to me in a nutshell (or at least in a single PowerPoint slide). Here's what he showed me:'
"About the party responsible for infiltrating government and military computers. In case you've been living in Richard B. Cheney's spider-hole, this F.B.I. system is called Ghostnet"
I guess the FBI will have to start investigating itself then:)
"Uh... Aren't they forgetting the inconvenient slowness of the speed of light?"
Send a craft with a virtual reality simulation of a crew running on board. On the journey have the VR simulation recreate contemporary earth culture. The VR program fabricates various crises for the 'crew' so as to keep them occupied and to distract them from the knowledge that they are in a simulation.
When the craft arrives at the destination connect the VR simulation to robots through short-range-high-bandwidth radio connections. Have the VR simulation be updated by the robots interactions with the real world. Then beam the simulation back to Earth and run it locally with humans plugged in to it.
'Have you ever had a dream, Neo, that you were so sure was real? What if you were unable to wake from that dream? How would you know the difference between the dream world and the real world?'
From what I know about the technology world, you have hit the nail on the head! So why is O'Reilly wrong? What is the fallacy in his thinking?
I don't know if he is wrong, but going from that article, I just get a slight wave of nausea. When ever I see market-speak in a 'technical' document it invariably means that it's aimed at the non-technical sector with just enough buzz phrases to keep them warm and fuzzy. Just check out some of the key phrases:
"The responsibilities of the CIO are to use information technology to transform the ways in which the government does business. The CTO will develop national strategies for using advanced technologies to transform our economy and our society, such as fostering private sector innovation, reducing administrative costs and medical errors using health IT, and using technology to change the way teachers teach and students learn"
[actually, that's from a White House Doc. For me that says: we don't know what we are on about:) ]
Will any of this this 'private sector innovation' lead to computers that can store-and-retrieve records in a secure and reliable manner and I would have thought that errors in medical records would have been a high priority from the beginning. From a link to a brief bio they refer to 'business intelligence software solution'. Yet another high-level-pseudo-technical-sounding phrase. I usually see that kind of thing in 'computer' magazines that contain no actual computer information aimed at the non-technical CTO sector. I don't actually read them but I have had my own CTO quote bits out of one to me, at least until he found out I know something.
My main point was in reference to appointing a non-techie to the post of CTO. For me, as a dyed-in-the-wool techie. regardless of how many qualifications you have, if you've never (from scratch) built an electronic device or wrote some code, then you aren't a real techie.
I've seen too many cases of people talking the correct pseudo-technical sounding babel to management, and it being accepted, as neither party know what they are on about, and willfully denying what their own people tell them. As after all, the consultant comes in trailing masses of certifications and awards. Generally it's a lot easier to write about how to do something, than actually implement it.
Slashdot Mirror
"RMS Says "Software As a Service" Is Non-free"
That was in direct response to a question regarding Affero GPL. One single question of about twenty five regarding 'software as a service'. Your article title and selective quote does tend to give an erroneous impression as to what the article was about.
-- begin quote -
Stallman discusses Free Software and GPLv3
First of all, could you remind us of what free software means?
Richard Stallman: Free software means software that respects the user's freedom. (Think of "free speech", not "free beer".) Specifically, it means you have the four essential freedoms: (1) to run the program as you wish, (2) to study the source code, and change it to make the program do what you wish, (3) to redistribute exact copies, and (4) to distribute copies of your modified versions.
-- end quote --
What would be a good definition of the program in relation to online search resources such as Google. How would the program match up against the vagueness inherent in normal human speech patterns.
"Have you got a lot of friends ?", April 27, @02:11PM #27728771
Ok, so tell us how many of your 'friends' would stop being your 'friend' if you stopped providing free tech support. What they are saying, when they want you to fix their computer for free - is that your time is worthless !
"Come on, what's so bad in helping others if you have knowledge and, most important, time? That's how a society works, people help people"
Sure people like to help people, so tell us how many of your acquientences would do your taxes, fix your boiler, fix your washing machine and mow the lawn, all for free?
"P.S. I don't repair neighbours/friends Windows PC's too, not even if they offer me to pay for it -- it's the same boring routine over and over. I do offer Linux installation and support for no charge case they want to check it out"
Right, I was not referring to the local LUG users group or the forums. For them it's a mutual exchange of technical advice. What gets me is the gall some people get in assuming I'll fix their PC for free.
"The NY Times writes about Justin McMurry of Keller, TX, who spends up to 20 unpaid hours per week helping Verizon customers"
No way should you ever do this. If it's worth doing then it's worth getting paid for doing it. And for each McMurry out there there is one less paid job at Verizon. Same with friends or neighbours. I'll fix their PC, but only if they pay me.
"I administer several Ubuntu desktops and numerous CentOS servers. One of the biggest headaches is keeping them up-to-date with each distro's latest bugfix and security patches"
My advice is, if it ain't broke don't fix it, especially on a production server. Have two identical systems and test the latest bugfix on that, before you roll it out to the live system. You don't know what someone elses bugfix is going to break and would have no way of rolling it back.
"If only they'd release the collection code..."
Yea, how is anyone supposed to figure out how to use it with only the complete API reference
"As for being as slick as OS X, well, spoken like somebody who obviously doesn't own a Mac"
"I am starting to prefer using my Ubuntu "Jaunty Jackalope" desktop over the similarly slick Windows 7 beta (which I am currently running full-time on one desktop) and Mac OS X Leopard operating systems, which I also use regularly"
"And the effects are mostly great (on their own), but it still lacks coherency in its design. The UI elements still look ratty, old-fashioned, and ugly .. highly-functional chicken coop"
Your experience is so totally different than the reviewer it's almost as you you were occupying a parallel Bizarro kind of universe.
'You won't be able to notice the vast improvement in Ubuntu's desktop experience over the past six months by browsing screenshot galleries of 9.04 or looking at new feature lists. What I'm talking about is that elusive slick-and-speedy feel you get from applications launching fast, windows moving around without jerkiness, and everything simply being where it should be in the user interface'
Seriously, if you think there is anything capable of being connected to the Internet that "cannot" be used for any of this nefarious crap, you're either seriously delusional, or woefully uneducated in security
Run the device from a read-only device and flush all the detritus from the cache at shutdown. Have the base system run the screen, mouse and keyboard and run the rest from a U3 type device. I'm using something similar, a bunch of portable apps on a USB stick.
'At 8 a.m. on May 4, 2001, anyone trying to access the White House Web site got an error message. By noon, whitehouse.gov was down entirely, the victim of a so-called distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack. Somewhere in the world, hackers were pinging White House servers with thousands of page requests per second, clogging the site. Also attacked were sites for the U.S. Navy and various other federal departments'
The solution is obvious, get a 'computer' that can't be hijacked to be used as part of a botnet, to launch DDOS attacks, to me co-opted in a spam farm, to be used to steal online identity and steal all your money from your bank account.
"The device is said to be in the final stages of development at the National Security Agency, which will check that its encryption software meets federal standards. It might not be ready for months"
Really, I would have thought it would be less secure after the spooks got their hands on it. As such I have corrected the title.
"The Ubuntu people are the same, if not worse (by this I refer to Canonical). They protect their trademarks aggressively. They stop websites, or spin off projects, unless they're strictly non-profit (this includes advertising)" Where, can you provide a list of citations where Canonical caused web sites or spin off projects to be canceled.
..
..
..
..
you may use the Trademarks in association with the software product provided:
* the changes are minimal and unsubstantial, as described above
* there is no commercial intent associated with the new product
* the Trademark is used in a way that makes it clear that your project is a development effort related to the Ubuntu source, but that the software you are working upon is not in fact Ubuntu as distributed by the Ubuntu project
* there is no suggestion (through words or appearance) that your project is approved, sponsored, or affiliated with Ubuntu
"Wikipedia should know better. There is no trademark or cybersquatting issue here. First, the site is entirely noncommercial, which puts it beyond the reach of U.S. trademark law"
What ever the legalities at issue her, it is patently obvious that the owners of wikipediaart.org are trying to piggyback on the reputation of Wikipedia. They did seem to have previously host their art site directly on Wikipedia itself. Perhaps the cybersquatting issue is a little retaliation.
Just for the opening sequence alone it was worth it. It took the whole comic book/graphic novel mythology and reinvented it for the movies and placed it in the context of the time, cold war paranoia etc. It also answered the question as to what super heroes do when off duty. Why it's a good movie is - it's one of those you can watch more than once. Unlike some very bad big budget movies where you can't wait to get out of the theater.
"When Novell and Red Hat release a new version you find all cool new features on their webpages. Not so for Canonical, for example Dustin Kirkland did an amazing job with screen profiles .. No word about it on any of their websites"
.. ..
They did do a Podcast that discusses screen profiles, on the ubuntupodcast website. And they do mention Ubuntu 'release parties'. Which sounds a lot more interactive than a post to a web site.
17:46: on marketing
30:50 Dustin Kirkland on Screen Profiles
"Since in the past it was not possible, just wondering, if hibernation can work with your swap partition encrypted with LUKS/dm-crypt"
Encrypted Root and Swap with LUKS on Ubuntu 6.06
"Aside from that, does swap size have to match physical RAM for hibernation, even if the machine has copious and largely unused amounts of it?"
"if you use hibernate, make it larger than your physical memory"
--
help, I can't type key terms into Google
"Do you make this comment everyday or something?"
..
It's his job, when ever Linux is mentioned he has to say 'not yet ready for the desktop'. It's the technological version of monkeys throwing shit
"Wait wait wait wait... these guys actually CHARGE for Ubunghole?"
..
There are now three ways for you to get Ubuntu. Just choose the delivery option that works best for you: * Download now - Download the Ubuntu, * Buy on CD or DVD, * Request a free CD
"The Joint Strike Fighter, also known as the F-35 Lightning II, is the costliest and most technically challenging weapons program the Pentagon has ever attempted. The plane, led by Lockheed Martin Corp., relies on 7.5 million lines of computer code, which the Government Accountability Office said is more than triple the amount used in the current top Air Force fighter"
.. Lockheed's F-22 Raptor Gets Zapped by International Date Line
Ohh, fuck
I recall one where the pilot wondered what would happen if he pressed the 'gear up' lever while still on the ground. The gear retracted and the aircraft was severely damaged.
What do these Linux servers do that require constant maintenence. In my experience, once it's set up and properly configured, it just goes and goes. Can we see a sample of these scripts. Have you contributed them to a forum?
"I'll bet you forgot to tell them that a few months down the road he will have no way to install an up-to-date application unless he updates the whole system. And that he will have to update (aka reinstall) the whole system every few months, since thats the usual duration his applications officially are up to date"
What are you on - or what are you even on about. If the app works then he'll have no reason to install the 'up-to-date' version. Like, if it works, don't fix it. Contrast that to Windows where you have a fifty-fifty chance of the system coming back up after the automatic update or service pack installation. If he does need to update, then he can contact the software developer directly. Contrast that to Windows, where you talk to a call center in Mumbai or whereever or be told to wait for the next service pack/bug fix.
'I asked Ramji if he could explain Microsoft's open-source strategy to me in a nutshell (or at least in a single PowerPoint slide). Here's what he showed me:'
"About the party responsible for infiltrating government and military computers. In case you've been living in Richard B. Cheney's spider-hole, this F.B.I. system is called Ghostnet"
I guess the FBI will have to start investigating itself then :)
"Uh... Aren't they forgetting the inconvenient slowness of the speed of light?"
Send a craft with a virtual reality simulation of a crew running on board. On the journey have the VR simulation recreate contemporary earth culture. The VR program fabricates various crises for the 'crew' so as to keep them occupied and to distract them from the knowledge that they are in a simulation.
When the craft arrives at the destination connect the VR simulation to robots through short-range-high-bandwidth radio connections. Have the VR simulation be updated by the robots interactions with the real world. Then beam the simulation back to Earth and run it locally with humans plugged in to it.
'Have you ever had a dream, Neo, that you were so sure was real? What if you were unable to wake from that dream? How would you know the difference between the dream world and the real world?'
I don't know if he is wrong, but going from that article, I just get a slight wave of nausea. When ever I see market-speak in a 'technical' document it invariably means that it's aimed at the non-technical sector with just enough buzz phrases to keep them warm and fuzzy. Just check out some of the key phrases:
:) ]
"The responsibilities of the CIO are to use information technology to transform the ways in which the government does business. The CTO will develop national strategies for using advanced technologies to transform our economy and our society, such as fostering private sector innovation, reducing administrative costs and medical errors using health IT, and using technology to change the way teachers teach and students learn"
[actually, that's from a White House Doc. For me that says: we don't know what we are on about
Will any of this this ' private sector innovation ' lead to computers that can store-and-retrieve records in a secure and reliable manner and I would have thought that errors in medical records would have been a high priority from the beginning. From a link to a brief bio they refer to 'business intelligence software solution'. Yet another high-level-pseudo-technical-sounding phrase. I usually see that kind of thing in 'computer' magazines that contain no actual computer information aimed at the non-technical CTO sector. I don't actually read them but I have had my own CTO quote bits out of one to me, at least until he found out I know something.
My main point was in reference to appointing a non-techie to the post of CTO. For me, as a dyed-in-the-wool techie. regardless of how many qualifications you have, if you've never (from scratch) built an electronic device or wrote some code, then you aren't a real techie.
I've seen too many cases of people talking the correct pseudo-technical sounding babel to management, and it being accepted, as neither party know what they are on about, and willfully denying what their own people tell them. As after all, the consultant comes in trailing masses of certifications and awards. Generally it's a lot easier to write about how to do something, than actually implement it.