I don't really know whether it's good or bad that MS is going down the route of having actual security products & schemes.
On the one hand, as many people here have said, it'd be useful if they concentrated on making the OS itself robust and less vulnerable to exploits etc. That's just common sense, and if their press is to be believed they're doing that. Time will tell.
On the other hand, they could release Vista, no exploits are found or at least publicised, and that wouldn't mean it was perfect. Antivirus and firewall would still be needed, so why shouldn't they provide them?
The real problem would be if they bundled them free-of-charge. Regardless of their quality, that would kill a large proportion of third party commercial equivalents, and I don't necessarily see Free/Open alternatives necessarily catering to that market.
Presumably the people paying to view the film on PPV are people who don't own the DVD but might like the film. These are exactly the kind of people you'd want to target with bargain prices to shift on DVDs you can't otherwise sell. It's like impulse buying - nothing on TV? Watch a film on PPV. Hmm, I'll give this random film a try! Ooh, I liked that, gimme a copy on DVD...:)
As other posters have said, it's not clear if you want a "Philosophy of OSS" or "Production of OSS" class. If it's the latter, I'd take the following approach as a starting point:
1) Using a simple (scripting maybe) language, get the students to write a simple program, for evaluation purposes.
2) Randomly assign each student's program to a different student. Ask them to extend the program in a to perform a given additional task. This'll be a good example of how different coding styles etc impact on reusability, ease of comprehension etc, and shows that just having the source isn't always enough to let you do useful work.
3) *After* this, go through discussion of coding standards, commenting styles/tools, design documents and so on. This section can now be run like a regular technical class. Illustrate good and bad examples using OSS projects you're familiar with, proving that having the source even purely as a teaching aid can be helpful.
4) Now run through 1 and 2 again with more complex programs (possibly in groups). With the lessons learned in 1 & 2, and the knowledge gained from 3, any advantages and disadvantages can be discussed and expanded upon.
Not specific to OSS really, this approach was used to good effect in a few of my university classes. It certainly taught me a few lessons!:D
Interestingly, a quick straw poll of ~30 or so programmers here in the office reveals no-one that had heard of it. So I'd say it's a fair bet that it's not *that* widely known...
More to the point, it's a decent idea. Firefox isn't hard to install, but why not make packaged versions with all the handy things in it? Thanks for the links to those other two, I'll have a longer look at all three of these options later:)
Re:"Sues a Guilty Person" has a more...
on
RIAA Sues a Child
·
· Score: 1
I only use the word "guilty" here because the mother has basically admitted that her daughter did exactly what the lawsuit alleges. Someone can jump in here and tell me that makes it hearsay, and that guilty is for criminal charges. I really don't care about the legal language side of it, to be honest.
I'm just trying to look at this from a more abstracted viewpoint. Get rid of the "think of the children!11!1" emotion from the situation, and look at it from a more sensible point of view:
Given that many seem to be opposed to teaching children not to infringe copyright (from a previous story here), and many also seem opposed to the RIAA suing the ISP, or the developers of the P2P applications, or the people making money primarily and fairly openly from infringing uses of P2P applications (the Napsters and Kazaas of the P2P world, rather than the Bittorrents), can someone tell me what recourse the RIAA *does* have when people infringe their copyright? And how is their pursuing such action in any meaningful way different to that of any other copyright holder or representative against an infringer?
Everyone should be equal in the sight of the law, and people must at some point be held responsible for their actions, or if they're not responsible, those who *are* responsible should be found and face suitable attention for their lack of responsibility. But hey, maybe I'm wrong, perhaps kids should be able to do what they like with impunity.
One is the same reason that it looks like Mac Office lags slightly behind the Windows version, and that is the use of Office to try and persuade people to use/stay with Windows. Much as many people on Slashdot seem to dislike Office, it's certainly a widely liked application for many businesses and individuals (I quite like Outlook and Word, although I hate Excel and loathe Powerpoint), so making the Windows version the best of the range is an easy win to get customers on the Windows bandwagon.
Secondly, any porting of flagship apps like Office to Linux would seem to be a vindication of it as an alternative platform to Windows, and MS can't be seen to acknowledge it as a potential comptetitor...:D
The third reason, possibly the most relevant given the weight of opinion on this site, is that the Linux market's known antipathy to Windows for ideological reasons, technical reasons, and economic reasons (many free, Free and open alternatives!) would make the cost of porting far outweigh potential revenues.
RIAA Sues a Guilty Person
on
RIAA Sues a Child
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
That has a less emotive feel to it, doesn't it?
You can argue about the merits of copyright, the merits of lawsuits against minors, the responsibilities of a parent to educate their child about obeying the law, but it sounds like the girl's done exactly what she's been accused of, and her mother is trying to get her off the hook. Fair enough. But next time we see someone rip off a GPL product and claim it as their own, no source available, I expect to see "FSF Sues Man Trying to Feed Family" or something equally 'balanced'...:)
The number of times I've seen people post on here adamant that they don't want to pay the Microsoft Tax on a new PC, only to see the response so far to this, makes me smile. Complaining that the difference in cost is too small, or that Dell hasn't chosen their favourite Linux distro to put on there, doesn't have an AMD processor, blah blah blah.
It's a PC without a preinstalled forcibly-paid-for copy of Windows. So Dell gets Windows for cheap, you don't see a huge price difference, but all those people who wanted an MS-free PC can now buy one. You can't possibly be upset by that, can you???
Dunno man, maybe I'm too optimistic, but even though the aim is to promote those things, I'd *hope* that a University of all places would have a more balanced teaching approach. Even when my lecturers expressed preferences about technologies, processes or approaches during my CS degree, they were always at least trying to be fair minded about it...
A class on the philosphy of open source? A whole semester? Yay indoctrination!
Perhaps it will be a well-reasoned and balanced class, teaching the good and bad points of the various Open Source / Free Software philosophies and approaches. I don't see why you assume it'll be indoctrination of any particular sort...?
I find it very intriguing that recently console ads have gone so far off at a mad tangent that they rarely mention consoles at all. Things like the mentioned tree-ad, the older PS2 "Third Place" David Lynch stuff, even my own personal favourite I Am The Wolf Man. I know it's all about brand recognition, getting talked about etc. but it seems like all of this happens at the expense of any sort of substance - none of the ads mentioned above contain any information whatsoever about what the consoles are, what capabilites they claim to have, what kind of games they run, or even who might like them. Just snappy ad-agency ideas to try and get the name stuck in your head...
You goofed slightly. The lack of "iMovies" store is an entirely deliberate, conscious decision prompted by the move to sell UMD films. In my opinion a decision that Sony might come to regret, given how expensive UMD films are compared to DVDs, but time will tell.
...kinda cool I suppose. Does limit the sorts of thing you can walk on - pretty difficult to simulate stairs, for example.
I always though that some sort of moving tile system with lots of small, tilting variable height tiles would work pretty well for simulating walking on undulating terrain, as well as being able to cover stairs etc.
Maybe a large spherical room with walls covered in shifting variable tiles of this sort, that way you could have overhangs etc as well. Go rock climbing up a virtual Eiger, with only a few feet to fall if you slip:)
...too many humans with a wide circular base, most of them have legs. I suppose the top half is fairly humanoid, but whenever the phrase "humanoid robot" is used I tend to assume something that walks upright on legs of some kind, rather than something with wheels.
Hahaha, only on Slashdot could a story with no relevance whatsoever to Microsoft result in a comment like this being marked Insightful.
What "insight" into the article does this comment convey? "shoot first ask questions later" operating system design? Please. It might well be true, but it has absolutely NOTHING to do with Apple's heavy-handedness in this situation.
...saying "Just learn the grammar correctly in the first place", here's a question: can you really see no use in a computerised tool to help you learn correct grammatical usage?
It's like someone coming on asking about natural media painting apps being told "Just go to art school and learn how to use REAL paint, you lazy bastard!" - you're missing the point entirely. A grammar checker would be useful even for people with a decent grasp of grammar, as a double-check. Like spell checking, do you get it yet?
Fair points, but some of them seem to miss what I was getting at...
I understand that each OS has its own strengths and weaknesses, but I think you overestimate exactly how much difference there is in some respects, and oversimplify others.
The networking aspect, yes, you're entirely correct.
Searching is, I think, a red herring - there are advanced search applications of the type you discuss on both Windows and MacOS, I don't know about Linux et al but assume there is. I'd also say that file systems optimised for searching may not be the best thing in all circumstances, but that's a very minor point.
Application interaction is another - as far as I know, all Windows applications are free, if they wish, to use and share DLLs. I know Linux apps can do the same, but don't know anything about Apple development although again I assume it's possible. However, it's a developer's choice as to whether they enable this sort of thing, and closed-source apps probably don't allow it as much as open source ones.
Finally, Windows doesn't make it much more impossible to copy apps around than any other OS. Developers might choose to use things like the registry instead of config files which make it considerably harder, but it's wrong to say that the OS doesn't allow it. With many apps, you *can* just copy them somewhere else and have them work.
I agree with your general point that the functionality as a whole is what counts, but I still think that as long as the underlying OS is "good enough" to allow the required apps to run, most people will be happy enough. After all, what would you rather have - a limited OS which has enough apps to allow you to do what you want, or a perfect OS with no practical application?
(note - writing your own apps deliberately ignored, I am a programmer too y'know!):)
It's always interesting to hear other people's opinions. One bit I felt a need to comment on was the following:
Interviewer:Why is every Windows user not on Linux?
Grant: Some don't care, others don't know, others are afraid to try.
Some of us do care, know all too well, and haven't been afraid to try - but our apps just aren't on Linux. In my case, one remarkably lovely music app keeps me using Windows. I also have no idea if Linux supports my Terratec sound card, but it probably does. Last time I used Linux audio was problematic to say the least, but that was around Mandrake 9 and with a Soundblaster, so it may well have changed for the better.
It's all about the apps, sometimes people seem forget that. If all the apps that a given person needs are available, and are easy enough to use, they'll probably be entirely happy on whatever OS they end up with. For someone with a specific itch to scratch, that isn't always the case...
...carrying all that gear means that the calls you do make on the GSM device in talk mode sound like heavy breathing pervert-o-calls, and you'll get busted for harrassment:)
...but no. I know some of the guys there, and this *was* removed. Sadly, in hindsight, they should have completely removed it - I suspect, but haven't asked, that instead of deleting the animations and code responsible for doing the crappy sex subgame, they just did something like
if(g_bDisableCrapSexSubgame){/* code here */ }
and left it at that. Thus an enterprising person can just reenable it. This time, you can bet all the code and assets have been completely removed:)
Why did they remove it? So that retailers would stock the game. The guys at R* don't give a damn what rating they get as long as the game sells. Limit the retail outlets your game is sold in, that impacts the bottom line, and that is a bad idea. A little controversy would be fine, but what happened with WalMart et al refusing to stock it was too much.
The only longer-term UK figures I can find for DS say that they sold "over 200,000" units in the first six weeks. So it looks like the initial surge of sales is definitely in the PSP's favour. Whether this momentum will continue remains to be seen, but it's still an impressive launch.
Also has a singularly unhelpful website, but that may be partially down to the/. effect meaning I can't reach the source code. Ah well, maybe it'll be good when it's done!:)
Apparently the solution to consoles being difficult to program for is to use Valve's proprietary, slightly sucky, extremely annoying Steam content delivery service. I don't get how that works, sorry. And I'm a console developer working on next gen.
To meet some of the other points he's raised doesn't take too much effort either:
Apparently nothing in Vista helps him out at all? What a shame. I fail to see how that is particularly relevant, especially since it really doesn't make anything worse. XNA might change things for Valve, but that's not the same thing. Valve only target one OS. If that OS changes under them, perhaps they should have practiced cross-platform development to cover that eventuality...
I'm not really surprised he says Xbox 360 makes his life worse - a lot of the planned online functionality MS have in store renders Steam somewhat irrelevant.
And I think he's being a touch cynical about the reasons for Sony's Cell architecture (disclaimer - I work for Sony). But I suppose he could be correct. Again, though, there are techniques for cross-platform development which Valve hasn't bothered its ass using.
If you stick with writing games for x86 Windows, I don't feel much sympathy for teething troubles when you start hitting the console hardware. Mainly because (shock) it really isn't all that different for the majority of the coders! Yes, you'll need specialists. But huge chunks of stuff won't need to change at all - game logic, frontend, scripts/scripting. This isn't rocket science, and many companies have been releasing titles near-simultaneously on multiple, drastically different hardware platforms for years.
Sour grapes from a Win32 codeshop. Who'd believe it...
Slashdot Mirror
I don't really know whether it's good or bad that MS is going down the route of having actual security products & schemes.
On the one hand, as many people here have said, it'd be useful if they concentrated on making the OS itself robust and less vulnerable to exploits etc. That's just common sense, and if their press is to be believed they're doing that. Time will tell.
On the other hand, they could release Vista, no exploits are found or at least publicised, and that wouldn't mean it was perfect. Antivirus and firewall would still be needed, so why shouldn't they provide them?
The real problem would be if they bundled them free-of-charge. Regardless of their quality, that would kill a large proportion of third party commercial equivalents, and I don't necessarily see Free/Open alternatives necessarily catering to that market.
Presumably the people paying to view the film on PPV are people who don't own the DVD but might like the film. These are exactly the kind of people you'd want to target with bargain prices to shift on DVDs you can't otherwise sell. It's like impulse buying - nothing on TV? Watch a film on PPV. Hmm, I'll give this random film a try! Ooh, I liked that, gimme a copy on DVD... :)
As other posters have said, it's not clear if you want a "Philosophy of OSS" or "Production of OSS" class. If it's the latter, I'd take the following approach as a starting point:
:D
1) Using a simple (scripting maybe) language, get the students to write a simple program, for evaluation purposes.
2) Randomly assign each student's program to a different student. Ask them to extend the program in a to perform a given additional task. This'll be a good example of how different coding styles etc impact on reusability, ease of comprehension etc, and shows that just having the source isn't always enough to let you do useful work.
3) *After* this, go through discussion of coding standards, commenting styles/tools, design documents and so on. This section can now be run like a regular technical class. Illustrate good and bad examples using OSS projects you're familiar with, proving that having the source even purely as a teaching aid can be helpful.
4) Now run through 1 and 2 again with more complex programs (possibly in groups). With the lessons learned in 1 & 2, and the knowledge gained from 3, any advantages and disadvantages can be discussed and expanded upon.
Not specific to OSS really, this approach was used to good effect in a few of my university classes. It certainly taught me a few lessons!
Interestingly, a quick straw poll of ~30 or so programmers here in the office reveals no-one that had heard of it. So I'd say it's a fair bet that it's not *that* widely known...
:)
More to the point, it's a decent idea. Firefox isn't hard to install, but why not make packaged versions with all the handy things in it? Thanks for the links to those other two, I'll have a longer look at all three of these options later
I only use the word "guilty" here because the mother has basically admitted that her daughter did exactly what the lawsuit alleges. Someone can jump in here and tell me that makes it hearsay, and that guilty is for criminal charges. I really don't care about the legal language side of it, to be honest.
I'm just trying to look at this from a more abstracted viewpoint. Get rid of the "think of the children!11!1" emotion from the situation, and look at it from a more sensible point of view:
Given that many seem to be opposed to teaching children not to infringe copyright (from a previous story here), and many also seem opposed to the RIAA suing the ISP, or the developers of the P2P applications, or the people making money primarily and fairly openly from infringing uses of P2P applications (the Napsters and Kazaas of the P2P world, rather than the Bittorrents), can someone tell me what recourse the RIAA *does* have when people infringe their copyright? And how is their pursuing such action in any meaningful way different to that of any other copyright holder or representative against an infringer?
Everyone should be equal in the sight of the law, and people must at some point be held responsible for their actions, or if they're not responsible, those who *are* responsible should be found and face suitable attention for their lack of responsibility. But hey, maybe I'm wrong, perhaps kids should be able to do what they like with impunity.
I can see this not happening for three reasons:
:D
One is the same reason that it looks like Mac Office lags slightly behind the Windows version, and that is the use of Office to try and persuade people to use/stay with Windows. Much as many people on Slashdot seem to dislike Office, it's certainly a widely liked application for many businesses and individuals (I quite like Outlook and Word, although I hate Excel and loathe Powerpoint), so making the Windows version the best of the range is an easy win to get customers on the Windows bandwagon.
Secondly, any porting of flagship apps like Office to Linux would seem to be a vindication of it as an alternative platform to Windows, and MS can't be seen to acknowledge it as a potential comptetitor...
The third reason, possibly the most relevant given the weight of opinion on this site, is that the Linux market's known antipathy to Windows for ideological reasons, technical reasons, and economic reasons (many free, Free and open alternatives!) would make the cost of porting far outweigh potential revenues.
That has a less emotive feel to it, doesn't it?
:)
You can argue about the merits of copyright, the merits of lawsuits against minors, the responsibilities of a parent to educate their child about obeying the law, but it sounds like the girl's done exactly what she's been accused of, and her mother is trying to get her off the hook. Fair enough. But next time we see someone rip off a GPL product and claim it as their own, no source available, I expect to see "FSF Sues Man Trying to Feed Family" or something equally 'balanced'...
...quite apart from being "old news", that is.
The number of times I've seen people post on here adamant that they don't want to pay the Microsoft Tax on a new PC, only to see the response so far to this, makes me smile. Complaining that the difference in cost is too small, or that Dell hasn't chosen their favourite Linux distro to put on there, doesn't have an AMD processor, blah blah blah.
It's a PC without a preinstalled forcibly-paid-for copy of Windows. So Dell gets Windows for cheap, you don't see a huge price difference, but all those people who wanted an MS-free PC can now buy one. You can't possibly be upset by that, can you???
Dunno man, maybe I'm too optimistic, but even though the aim is to promote those things, I'd *hope* that a University of all places would have a more balanced teaching approach. Even when my lecturers expressed preferences about technologies, processes or approaches during my CS degree, they were always at least trying to be fair minded about it...
Perhaps it will be a well-reasoned and balanced class, teaching the good and bad points of the various Open Source / Free Software philosophies and approaches. I don't see why you assume it'll be indoctrination of any particular sort...?
Disclaimer: I work for Sony, blah blah blah.
I find it very intriguing that recently console ads have gone so far off at a mad tangent that they rarely mention consoles at all. Things like the mentioned tree-ad, the older PS2 "Third Place" David Lynch stuff, even my own personal favourite I Am The Wolf Man. I know it's all about brand recognition, getting talked about etc. but it seems like all of this happens at the expense of any sort of substance - none of the ads mentioned above contain any information whatsoever about what the consoles are, what capabilites they claim to have, what kind of games they run, or even who might like them. Just snappy ad-agency ideas to try and get the name stuck in your head...
You goofed slightly. The lack of "iMovies" store is an entirely deliberate, conscious decision prompted by the move to sell UMD films. In my opinion a decision that Sony might come to regret, given how expensive UMD films are compared to DVDs, but time will tell.
...kinda cool I suppose. Does limit the sorts of thing you can walk on - pretty difficult to simulate stairs, for example.
:)
I always though that some sort of moving tile system with lots of small, tilting variable height tiles would work pretty well for simulating walking on undulating terrain, as well as being able to cover stairs etc.
Maybe a large spherical room with walls covered in shifting variable tiles of this sort, that way you could have overhangs etc as well. Go rock climbing up a virtual Eiger, with only a few feet to fall if you slip
...too many humans with a wide circular base, most of them have legs. I suppose the top half is fairly humanoid, but whenever the phrase "humanoid robot" is used I tend to assume something that walks upright on legs of some kind, rather than something with wheels.
Still, looks like a cool piece of kit...
...seems to be maintainer of the GNU C library, and works for Red Hat. At least, that's what Google says. Should I know who he is??? :/
Hahaha, only on Slashdot could a story with no relevance whatsoever to Microsoft result in a comment like this being marked Insightful.
What "insight" into the article does this comment convey? "shoot first ask questions later" operating system design? Please. It might well be true, but it has absolutely NOTHING to do with Apple's heavy-handedness in this situation.
...saying "Just learn the grammar correctly in the first place", here's a question: can you really see no use in a computerised tool to help you learn correct grammatical usage?
It's like someone coming on asking about natural media painting apps being told "Just go to art school and learn how to use REAL paint, you lazy bastard!" - you're missing the point entirely. A grammar checker would be useful even for people with a decent grasp of grammar, as a double-check. Like spell checking, do you get it yet?
Fair points, but some of them seem to miss what I was getting at...
:)
I understand that each OS has its own strengths and weaknesses, but I think you overestimate exactly how much difference there is in some respects, and oversimplify others.
The networking aspect, yes, you're entirely correct.
Searching is, I think, a red herring - there are advanced search applications of the type you discuss on both Windows and MacOS, I don't know about Linux et al but assume there is. I'd also say that file systems optimised for searching may not be the best thing in all circumstances, but that's a very minor point.
Application interaction is another - as far as I know, all Windows applications are free, if they wish, to use and share DLLs. I know Linux apps can do the same, but don't know anything about Apple development although again I assume it's possible. However, it's a developer's choice as to whether they enable this sort of thing, and closed-source apps probably don't allow it as much as open source ones.
Finally, Windows doesn't make it much more impossible to copy apps around than any other OS. Developers might choose to use things like the registry instead of config files which make it considerably harder, but it's wrong to say that the OS doesn't allow it. With many apps, you *can* just copy them somewhere else and have them work.
I agree with your general point that the functionality as a whole is what counts, but I still think that as long as the underlying OS is "good enough" to allow the required apps to run, most people will be happy enough. After all, what would you rather have - a limited OS which has enough apps to allow you to do what you want, or a perfect OS with no practical application?
(note - writing your own apps deliberately ignored, I am a programmer too y'know!)
Some of us do care, know all too well, and haven't been afraid to try - but our apps just aren't on Linux. In my case, one remarkably lovely music app keeps me using Windows. I also have no idea if Linux supports my Terratec sound card, but it probably does. Last time I used Linux audio was problematic to say the least, but that was around Mandrake 9 and with a Soundblaster, so it may well have changed for the better.
It's all about the apps, sometimes people seem forget that. If all the apps that a given person needs are available, and are easy enough to use, they'll probably be entirely happy on whatever OS they end up with. For someone with a specific itch to scratch, that isn't always the case...
...carrying all that gear means that the calls you do make on the GSM device in talk mode sound like heavy breathing pervert-o-calls, and you'll get busted for harrassment :)
Why did they remove it? So that retailers would stock the game. The guys at R* don't give a damn what rating they get as long as the game sells. Limit the retail outlets your game is sold in, that impacts the bottom line, and that is a bad idea. A little controversy would be fine, but what happened with WalMart et al refusing to stock it was too much.
Disclaimer - I work for Sony :)
:(
The only longer-term UK figures I can find for DS say that they sold "over 200,000" units in the first six weeks. So it looks like the initial surge of sales is definitely in the PSP's favour. Whether this momentum will continue remains to be seen, but it's still an impressive launch.
Just wish I could afford one myself
Development Status: Pre-Alpha
/. effect meaning I can't reach the source code. Ah well, maybe it'll be good when it's done! :)
Also has a singularly unhelpful website, but that may be partially down to the
Apparently the solution to consoles being difficult to program for is to use Valve's proprietary, slightly sucky, extremely annoying Steam content delivery service. I don't get how that works, sorry. And I'm a console developer working on next gen.
To meet some of the other points he's raised doesn't take too much effort either:
Apparently nothing in Vista helps him out at all? What a shame. I fail to see how that is particularly relevant, especially since it really doesn't make anything worse. XNA might change things for Valve, but that's not the same thing. Valve only target one OS. If that OS changes under them, perhaps they should have practiced cross-platform development to cover that eventuality...
I'm not really surprised he says Xbox 360 makes his life worse - a lot of the planned online functionality MS have in store renders Steam somewhat irrelevant.
And I think he's being a touch cynical about the reasons for Sony's Cell architecture (disclaimer - I work for Sony). But I suppose he could be correct. Again, though, there are techniques for cross-platform development which Valve hasn't bothered its ass using.
If you stick with writing games for x86 Windows, I don't feel much sympathy for teething troubles when you start hitting the console hardware. Mainly because (shock) it really isn't all that different for the majority of the coders! Yes, you'll need specialists. But huge chunks of stuff won't need to change at all - game logic, frontend, scripts/scripting. This isn't rocket science, and many companies have been releasing titles near-simultaneously on multiple, drastically different hardware platforms for years.
Sour grapes from a Win32 codeshop. Who'd believe it...
History matters.