If you want out of the box, you're probably using the wrong Linux distribution. There are roughly 157 recognized Linux distributions. I'm sure there is one which suits your needs. If not, maybe Linux isn't the solution for you.
Just because a screwdriver could be used as a chisel, doesn't mean it's the best tool for the job. Use the right tool for the right job.
What if the item I want to access with the keyboard isn't on a menu, oh, like the Yes/No dialog in Mozilla? What if it's a toggle button inside a dialog?
Then you use the keyboard, tab and the spacebar, like every other person has been using on Windows, Macintosh, Linux, and Unix for decades. Did you manage to decouple that ability somewhere? I still have it in every OS I've ever used.
You are confusing accelerators with keyboard navigation:
No at all. Input is input, and I certainly do NOT want any application overriding or inheriting the binding preferences, input modifiers, accelerators or navigation elements that are set by my window manager, desktop, or OS itself.
Unlike you, I see this as adding flexibility, not taking it away. I don't want 'Y' and 'N' to be a default choice in a dialog box for Mozilla (when you can easily get to either of those through XUL, or with the normal keyboard without changing a single binding anywhere in your OS). What if I have 'Y' set as a watched binding in my window manager? What if my 'N' key is broken and I've mapped it to a different keystroke through xmodmap?
You are also taking the classic open-source argument that Makes UIs Suck: well, just go fix it yourself if you don't like it! Just press Ctrl Alt Meta Shift CokeBottle, then edit >~/.foobarrc, add "MakeMyAppLessStupid=True" restart X, and you're good to go!
Again flexibility. You want a GUI wrapped around those human-readable files? Go ahead and write one up in the favorite toolkit of your choice. Qt, Tk, wxWindows, Xlib, Motif, whatever.
I take that stance because Open Source works, and has been proven to work well for over a decade. As Linus has said before, If you don't like it, you're entitled to double the purchase price back.
Why does everyone expect the Open Source community to just cater to them? Why do they think we do this for THEM? We do not work for you. You aren't paying my salary. You have the code. Here's how this works:
If you don't like what it does, fix it.
If you don't want to fix it, help someone else to fix it.
If you don't want to do that, pay someone to fix it.
If you don't want to do that, find something else to use.
If you don't want to do that, then you have absolutely no grounds to complain.
I should write a HOWTO or whitepaper on this, the attitudes of everyone treating the Open Source and Free Software developers as a big pool of "free" development talent is really getting tiresome.
"Hey, I like your code, but could you move the button bar to the bottom?"
"You have the code, go ahead and change it and send me a patch. Right now, moving the button bar is lower on my priority list. Look at button_bar.c around lines 200-240 for the code to change."
"You suck, Open Source sucks, you all suck!"
This vomit has to stop, and it will only take force or persistance to bend the newbies back into shape. This is not our problem to deal with.
The single best way to fix this stupid problem is for keyboard shortcuts to be automated but overrideable in GUI toolkits. When I write a menu item, it should scan the entire list of menu items, and generate keyboard mnemonics for everything.
How old is your Linux box? I've been able to just hit the key I want for whatever menu shortcut I want for several years now, out of the box.
Humor me, try this:
Launch any gtk+ application, like say...gimp.
Now, open the File menu with your mouse, or Alt-F.
At the top, you'll see 'New'. Highlight it with your mouse, but don't click it.
Hit Backspace.
Now hit Ctrl-N
Now hit Backspace
Now hit Ctrl-Alt-Shift-N.
See? You can assign and remove any meny accellerator you wish, in any application (that supports it of course, like stock gtk+ applications, XUL code (i.e. Mozilla, Galeon), and so on.
If anyone wishes to see a modified E2 install in place, go on over to PerlMonks and poke around. Look at the layout, the structure, the search engine and see if it fits your needs.
Seeing it in action there, and having used it there for almost a year, it has convinced me personally, that E2 is the way to go for this type of content management system, but YMMV.
I have to keep reinforcing this to everyone who mistakenly calls this Copy Protection.
This is not Copy Protection, because it doesn't protect your "copy" at all, and in fact they're trying to mislead you into believing that making a copy is forbidden. There is nothing at all wrong with copying a music CD. Your purchase price INCLUDES the right to make a copy.
Please begin to call this by it's proper term.. Copy Prevention.
Companies like Sony, JVC, and others who are implementing these technologies want to take back the right you've paid for at the register, to make a legal copy of the music you've bought. These companies are taking your rights away, not giving you more rights.
If you want to retain the rights to the music you've already purchased, don't support companies who support or develop technologies like this. This includes going to see movies in the theaters that are sponsored by Sony Pictures and other companies who back or support these restrictive technologies. This is not a joke. Let them realize that their "decrease in revenue" is not because of piracy, but because people are getting annoyed with this stuff, and are boycotting the company's products (not to mention this economy thing these companies seem to ignore in their marketing reports on how piracy has quintupled in the past year).
Once people start using the right terms en-masse, awareness is sure to increase along with it.
Copy Prevention, not Copy Protection. Just remember that.
When I was in South San Francisco, I was paying $99.00/mo. for a 144k SDSL line. It was good, solid, and MegaPath's service and support was absolutely stellar. I had zero complaints, and I had the extra money at the time to pay for the bandwidth.
At the same time, a coworker up the road from me in Daly City had a 1.5/784k ADSL for $69.00/mo.
I resigned and relocated to Westerly, RI and Cox Cable was my only choice. I now pay $109.00/mo. for 256/256 with 1 static address. The service is absolutely slush (and I'm on a "Business" class connection, no blocked ports, separate non-residential subnet, etc.). Cox has now started capping people below their subscribed bandwidth, and has begun to shut people out of their own cable modems, so you can't get traffic statistics from the modem any longer... even if you own the equipment!
The nearest DSL around here is from ChoiceOne, and it's 2x the price for 128k SDSL. I'm 2,000 feet from the CO. 1.5m SDSL from ChoiceOne here is $499.00/mo. That's almost what it would cost me to get a T1 dragged into my house.
That same friend recently moved from Daly City to Fremont, and now pays $79.00/mo. for his 1.5/768k DSL line and he also has a cable line, which he pays $29.00/mo. for. He's getting two broadband connections at more than 10x my speeds, for less than I pay for one cable connection, per month.
Broadband pricing varies WILDLY from location to location, even a few miles apart, from the same providers and CO.
And for those who don't know what the "Brass Rail" pricing is, "..just firmly grasp this brass rail on the front of my desk as I step behind you for a moment.." -Broadband Provider
Does anyone else find it funny that the SMBdie script that is used to supposedly crash Windows machines by sending a specifically-crafted SMB packet... is a Windows executable?
In the era of security conscious people, running someone else's.exe file is really stupid, even if you think it might be funny.
And this tool got front-paged on Slashdot. How stupid can you possibly get?
"..but why isn't there an open source solution to this problem yet?"
The reason there isn't an Open Source solution to this problem is because.. it isn't a problem, for us.
This is a Microsoft-driven problem. We have literally dozens upon dozens of solutions for spreadsheets, word processing, typesetting, document editing, printing, formatting, conversion, storage, mail, clients, servers, and so on. Linux is Legos, you stack your bricks however you choose.
Once someone decides that they (the frustrated Microsoft camp) want to have a solution in the Open Source space, they'll give us the incentive to do so. Right now, we have all the tools we need to do our jobs, in many formats and flavors. Just because the Windows users do not, does not make this our problem.
I constantly find myself reinforcing this point.. the Open Source community isn't here to solve everyone's problems with Open Source software. We don't find all the cracks and fill them with Open Source "caulk". We are not a free development warehouse, to pick and choose what YOU want US to do for YOU, for FREE.
Over the past two years, I've seen hundreds of my close personal friends (myself included) pour their hearts and souls out to help the "Corporate Bottom Line" understand and develop solutions using Open Source software, only to get laid off, fired, and let go for no reason.. meanwhile NOTHING is given back to the Open Source community for their selfless efforts, except higher unemployment numbers by these companies exploiting Open Source software.
If you want it bad enough, you'll find a way to motivate us to help you reach your goals. Complaining about a problem that doesn't even remotely affect us, doesn't help you solve your problems any faster.
Why is everyone jumping on Palm about this? The Compaq iPAQ has a 12-bit screen and produces *ONLY* 4,096 colors. The m130, by contrast, produces *MORE* colors, using blending techniques.
"And if you don't know or appreciate my work, don't send me money."
What has Rob Levin, aka "lilo", actually done for OPN?
Has he written one single line of the dancer ircd code? No.
Does he pay for bandwidth? No.
Does he supply servers? No.
Is Rob Levin an Open Source contributor or author? No.
Does he provide anything to the volunteers who donate their equipment, bandwidth, disk space, and time to OPN? No.
Remind me again what exactly we're paying Rob Levin (not OPN) for.. because I fail to see the value-add here. What "work" has Rob Levin actually contributed to, other than pissing off everyone who started his network 7 years ago, myself included, and kicking off channels that include people who dislike Rob Levin personally, like KainX.
I caught lilo doing this a couple of years ago (and have full irc logs of the dozens of conversations over the years), and was summarily g-lined from the network (being on that network as long as I have, there are many ways into and out of there, seen and unseen, he knows this as well). He knows who I am, and I have no reason to hide my identity. Now I'm regretting moving the several channels I relocated a few years ago to OPN.
I've been there when it was truly a free network, linpeople. It was then perverted into OpenProjects, and most-recently freenode. I notice that the motd over the years has changed from "This is a free network" (linpeople) to "This is a private network" (OPN, check your irc logs people, it's in there: "This is a private service, provided for and by private users and organizations. It is not a public forum."), to no mention of free or private (freenode). Was that an intentional omission? I believe so.
OPN has always been a very locked-down, authoritative (read: non-free) network. It will continue to be such, as long as the "maintainer" of the network refuses to delegate control of it. I've suggested this to him personally over 2 years ago, to which he scoffed. Fine, micromanage it into the ground.
The success of a project is measured if it survives its first maintainer. OPN will not, no matter how many times you rename it. It does not need "donations" to survive, even if Rob Levin needs money to survive. There are other ways to get money, Rob.. such as getting a paying job. Your ego prohibits you from doing so, as you and I have discussed before.
I've been out of work for a long time, as have many of my friends and former colleagues, and you don't see me asking for handouts, and I *DO* run an open irc network, Open Source CVS services, project hosting, web development, mailing lists, development on my own Open Source projects, and many other things... all without a cent. Why? Because I believe in it. I pay for my own bandwidth, my own servers, my own time. I ask for nothing in return. My "pay" is knowing I'm doing something good for the community as a whole. If you feel you need something back, don't hand it out for free. That's not what Open Source is about.
I would love to sit home all day and get paid to work on things I love, but unfortunately in the current economy, that's not reality.
Regarding those "donations" (i.e. used to pay for your rent, groceries, et al), have you begun paying the developers who help keep your network running? What about those who are maintaining the ircd code that you run on the network (dancer). Have they been compensated? Without the software, you don't have a network. What about server administrators? What about backups? Are you compensating your leaf nodes? Likely not.
This has been several years coming, and don't say I didn't warn you about it. You know I have see the demise long before now, and I've given you dozens of suggestions to avoid it. You refuse to listen, and you bear the burdon of those choices. I just hope that your head doesn't get so big that you and your ego can't fit outside the front door.
"If an infinite number of rednecks driving an infinite number of pickup trucks fired an infinite number of shotguns at an infinite number of road signs, they would eventually write all the great books...in braille."
Most Open Source developers DO NOT get paid
on
Hacker Survey
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
I personally reject the assertion that marketing slides like this make to investors (likely VA/OSDN investors in this case) that imply that Open Source developers are getting paid to do more than half of their work (slide 12,22, 23,
26 , and others). I would argue that 90% or more of Open Source work done by developers that are not working on "Company Products", is unpaid.
I spent 18 months at an Open Source company, and never spent a single hour during company time in 18 months working on anything Open Source, including my own Open Source projects. I was certainly "expected" to put in 10+ hour days on the weekends though, without any additional compensation "for the good of the company".
Many Open Source developers are unemployed right now and still looking for work (259 days and counting for myself), and still contributing 100% of their time to their projects, while the "industry" at large continues to fire and lay off more and more qualified developers in the interest of "quarterly revenues". Trust me, nobody is getting more than half of their income from any company for working on projects that are given away gratis as the above slides lead you to believe.
I also reject the assertion that Sourceforge is leading the way in this regard. Sourceforge has been drifting for quite some time, and thousands of developers are leaving Sourceforge for want of better services every week. You don't see that on the surveys though, do you?
This is not Copy Protection, because it doesn't protect your "copy" at all, and in fact they're trying to mislead you into believing that making a copy is forbidden.
Please begin to call this by it's proper term.. Copy Prevention.
Once people start using this term en-masse, awareness is sure to increase along with it.
Copy Prevention, not Copy Protection. Just remember that.
It looks like/. took another one down. Lycoris is down, their mysql database is spitting errors, the mirrors are down, and now all the links point to some sort of phpwebhosting.com website.
DMCA is not a specific case, it's just a case that is very visible to us (nerds, geeks, techies, whatever).
The DMCA is not a "case", it's a LAW. Big difference. It's already been decided and put on the books, and people are being found guilty of breaking it, and are being punished for it.
It may be unjust, but it IS a law, and it is on the books.
Has anyone thought that this was intentional? Perhaps they didn't document it because they wanted to leave it there for future OS upgrades, patches, and other things.
If users install applications into this flash space, Handspring can't upgrade or patch the OS using this flash space. Now the number of support calls quintuple, because users flashed applications into this space (violating their warantee, I might add).
I see nothing at all wrong with what they've done, and it happens all the time in electronics.
Well now we have two versions of the same EULA with conflicting conditions, both of which are posted in VERY public places! Now I'm no expert on contract law, but with two publicly posted conflicting versions, as far as I'm concerned, we can safely ignore both!
Did you ever think that this was intentional? People will assume it's ok to ignore both, since there can be no determination as to which one is "right", and their comfort-level with installing it will increase.
"Hey, there's two versions of this license here? I'll ignore both. [clicks install]"
People will feel more comfortable installing it, therefore more people will be stung by it when it timebombs into the next thing.
Microsoft is a marketing company, not a software company. They have plenty of tricks up their sleeve to dodge around a lot of laws. This whole anti-trust trial was nothing more than "practice" for them.
Has anyone noticed that the more "fixes" get put into Microsoft products, the less you can do with them? For a company that advertises innovation, they sure are clamping down on the choices you can make with using it.
Using Microsoft == less flexibility, less choices.
This is a common misnomer. These figures of "Linux isn't as widely used as Windows" is based purely on SALES of both operating systems. I would wager that there are countless MILLIONS more units of Linux in use that were downloaded or hand-built versus those sold by distribution manufacturers. Let's also not forget the millions of units being sold with Linux pre-loaded on PDAs (Zaurus), embedded controllers, PIC/PLC, and so on.
Even more interesting... if they can tell who is pirating the software, via the serial numbers, what is to stop them from adding some spyware to send out a few packets from the machine, which can be tracked by the source IP address, and send the BSA to your door for your software violation, shortly followed by the FBI and the RIAA to seize your machines to check for "copyright violations", and so on.
I see this as an excuse for Microsoft to deliver "legitimate" spyware to your machine. If they can shut you down from updates, there is nothing stopping them from "adding" a little update that notifies Microsoft that you are using the software illegally from IP address 12.34.56.78, through whatever ISP you use.
No thanks, not for me. Microsoft Window is still the "Duplo" block of the operating system world.
I can't tell you how many times I've seen someone receive a burnt CD with 'Red Hat xx' scribbled with a magic marker, and they ask something like, "is this legal?". It just 'feels' like you are doing something dirty.
It's perfectly legal to do... however you probably paid a nice fat royalty to the RIAA and MPAA for the purchase of that blank CDR media, data or otherwise, depending on which country you live in.
How lovely is it to know you're supporting the illegal extortion tactics of the crooked music industry by burning your favorite free Linux distribution onto a blank CDR media. It's not even music, and the music industry (note: not the artists) benefits.
"Microsoft's Passport is being considered as a way to authenticate users of the Web sites, said Mark Forman, associate director of information technology at the White House."
The problem is that the clueless people in office don't understand technology, and to them, Web == Internet.
We need educated, skilled, technologists in offices of some sort of political influence to correct the misconceptions that companies like Oracle, Microsoft, and others are spoonfeeding these uneducated politicians.
How far away are we from having to present our National I.D. card in a secured card-reader in order to even connect to the internet? Then they'd really know who was downloading what (DRM, RIAA, MPAA controls implemented on your local storage device), for how long (Kazaa, spyware), what email and IM was written (Echelon), what sites you went to (Carnivore), and so on.
Slashdot Mirror
Just because a screwdriver could be used as a chisel, doesn't mean it's the best tool for the job. Use the right tool for the right job.
Then you use the keyboard, tab and the spacebar, like every other person has been using on Windows, Macintosh, Linux, and Unix for decades. Did you manage to decouple that ability somewhere? I still have it in every OS I've ever used.
No at all. Input is input, and I certainly do NOT want any application overriding or inheriting the binding preferences, input modifiers, accelerators or navigation elements that are set by my window manager, desktop, or OS itself.
Unlike you, I see this as adding flexibility, not taking it away. I don't want 'Y' and 'N' to be a default choice in a dialog box for Mozilla (when you can easily get to either of those through XUL, or with the normal keyboard without changing a single binding anywhere in your OS). What if I have 'Y' set as a watched binding in my window manager? What if my 'N' key is broken and I've mapped it to a different keystroke through xmodmap?
Again flexibility. You want a GUI wrapped around those human-readable files? Go ahead and write one up in the favorite toolkit of your choice. Qt, Tk, wxWindows, Xlib, Motif, whatever.
I take that stance because Open Source works, and has been proven to work well for over a decade. As Linus has said before, If you don't like it, you're entitled to double the purchase price back.
Why does everyone expect the Open Source community to just cater to them? Why do they think we do this for THEM? We do not work for you. You aren't paying my salary. You have the code. Here's how this works:
I should write a HOWTO or whitepaper on this, the attitudes of everyone treating the Open Source and Free Software developers as a big pool of "free" development talent is really getting tiresome.
This vomit has to stop, and it will only take force or persistance to bend the newbies back into shape. This is not our problem to deal with.
How old is your Linux box? I've been able to just hit the key I want for whatever menu shortcut I want for several years now, out of the box.
Humor me, try this:
See? You can assign and remove any meny accellerator you wish, in any application (that supports it of course, like stock gtk+ applications, XUL code (i.e. Mozilla, Galeon), and so on.
Your FUD doesn't help the cause.
Seeing it in action there, and having used it there for almost a year, it has convinced me personally, that E2 is the way to go for this type of content management system, but YMMV.
Please, don't support MP3 when you can support Ogg Vorbis and benefit everyone, while benefitting no single person or company.
This is not Copy Protection, because it doesn't protect your "copy" at all, and in fact they're trying to mislead you into believing that making a copy is forbidden. There is nothing at all wrong with copying a music CD. Your purchase price INCLUDES the right to make a copy.
Please begin to call this by it's proper term.. Copy Prevention .
Companies like Sony, JVC, and others who are implementing these technologies want to take back the right you've paid for at the register, to make a legal copy of the music you've bought. These companies are taking your rights away, not giving you more rights.
If you want to retain the rights to the music you've already purchased, don't support companies who support or develop technologies like this. This includes going to see movies in the theaters that are sponsored by Sony Pictures and other companies who back or support these restrictive technologies. This is not a joke. Let them realize that their "decrease in revenue" is not because of piracy, but because people are getting annoyed with this stuff, and are boycotting the company's products (not to mention this economy thing these companies seem to ignore in their marketing reports on how piracy has quintupled in the past year).
Once people start using the right terms en-masse, awareness is sure to increase along with it.
Copy Prevention , not Copy Protection . Just remember that.
At the same time, a coworker up the road from me in Daly City had a 1.5/784k ADSL for $69.00/mo.
I resigned and relocated to Westerly, RI and Cox Cable was my only choice. I now pay $109.00/mo. for 256/256 with 1 static address. The service is absolutely slush (and I'm on a "Business" class connection, no blocked ports, separate non-residential subnet, etc.). Cox has now started capping people below their subscribed bandwidth, and has begun to shut people out of their own cable modems, so you can't get traffic statistics from the modem any longer... even if you own the equipment!
The nearest DSL around here is from ChoiceOne, and it's 2x the price for 128k SDSL. I'm 2,000 feet from the CO. 1.5m SDSL from ChoiceOne here is $499.00/mo. That's almost what it would cost me to get a T1 dragged into my house.
That same friend recently moved from Daly City to Fremont, and now pays $79.00/mo. for his 1.5/768k DSL line and he also has a cable line, which he pays $29.00/mo. for. He's getting two broadband connections at more than 10x my speeds, for less than I pay for one cable connection, per month.
Broadband pricing varies WILDLY from location to location, even a few miles apart, from the same providers and CO.
And for those who don't know what the "Brass Rail" pricing is, "..just firmly grasp this brass rail on the front of my desk as I step behind you for a moment.." -Broadband Provider
In the era of security conscious people, running someone else's .exe file is really stupid, even if you think it might be funny.
And this tool got front-paged on Slashdot. How stupid can you possibly get?
This is a Microsoft-driven problem. We have literally dozens upon dozens of solutions for spreadsheets, word processing, typesetting, document editing, printing, formatting, conversion, storage, mail, clients, servers, and so on. Linux is Legos, you stack your bricks however you choose.
Once someone decides that they (the frustrated Microsoft camp) want to have a solution in the Open Source space, they'll give us the incentive to do so. Right now, we have all the tools we need to do our jobs, in many formats and flavors. Just because the Windows users do not, does not make this our problem.
I constantly find myself reinforcing this point.. the Open Source community isn't here to solve everyone's problems with Open Source software. We don't find all the cracks and fill them with Open Source "caulk". We are not a free development warehouse, to pick and choose what YOU want US to do for YOU, for FREE.
Over the past two years, I've seen hundreds of my close personal friends (myself included) pour their hearts and souls out to help the "Corporate Bottom Line" understand and develop solutions using Open Source software, only to get laid off, fired, and let go for no reason.. meanwhile NOTHING is given back to the Open Source community for their selfless efforts, except higher unemployment numbers by these companies exploiting Open Source software.
If you want it bad enough, you'll find a way to motivate us to help you reach your goals. Complaining about a problem that doesn't even remotely affect us, doesn't help you solve your problems any faster.
Why is everyone jumping on Palm about this? The Compaq iPAQ has a 12-bit screen and produces *ONLY* 4,096 colors. The m130, by contrast, produces *MORE* colors, using blending techniques.
What has Rob Levin, aka "lilo", actually done for OPN?
Remind me again what exactly we're paying Rob Levin (not OPN) for.. because I fail to see the value-add here. What "work" has Rob Levin actually contributed to, other than pissing off everyone who started his network 7 years ago, myself included, and kicking off channels that include people who dislike Rob Levin personally, like KainX.
I caught lilo doing this a couple of years ago (and have full irc logs of the dozens of conversations over the years), and was summarily g-lined from the network (being on that network as long as I have, there are many ways into and out of there, seen and unseen, he knows this as well). He knows who I am, and I have no reason to hide my identity. Now I'm regretting moving the several channels I relocated a few years ago to OPN.
I've been there when it was truly a free network, linpeople. It was then perverted into OpenProjects, and most-recently freenode. I notice that the motd over the years has changed from "This is a free network" (linpeople) to "This is a private network" (OPN, check your irc logs people, it's in there: "This is a private service, provided for and by private users and organizations. It is not a public forum."), to no mention of free or private (freenode). Was that an intentional omission? I believe so.
OPN has always been a very locked-down, authoritative (read: non-free) network. It will continue to be such, as long as the "maintainer" of the network refuses to delegate control of it. I've suggested this to him personally over 2 years ago, to which he scoffed. Fine, micromanage it into the ground.
The success of a project is measured if it survives its first maintainer. OPN will not, no matter how many times you rename it. It does not need "donations" to survive, even if Rob Levin needs money to survive. There are other ways to get money, Rob.. such as getting a paying job. Your ego prohibits you from doing so, as you and I have discussed before.
I've been out of work for a long time, as have many of my friends and former colleagues, and you don't see me asking for handouts, and I *DO* run an open irc network, Open Source CVS services, project hosting, web development, mailing lists, development on my own Open Source projects, and many other things... all without a cent. Why? Because I believe in it. I pay for my own bandwidth, my own servers, my own time. I ask for nothing in return. My "pay" is knowing I'm doing something good for the community as a whole. If you feel you need something back, don't hand it out for free. That's not what Open Source is about.
I would love to sit home all day and get paid to work on things I love, but unfortunately in the current economy, that's not reality.
Regarding those "donations" (i.e. used to pay for your rent, groceries, et al), have you begun paying the developers who help keep your network running? What about those who are maintaining the ircd code that you run on the network (dancer). Have they been compensated? Without the software, you don't have a network. What about server administrators? What about backups? Are you compensating your leaf nodes? Likely not.
This has been several years coming, and don't say I didn't warn you about it. You know I have see the demise long before now, and I've given you dozens of suggestions to avoid it. You refuse to listen, and you bear the burdon of those choices. I just hope that your head doesn't get so big that you and your ego can't fit outside the front door.
Gojira...
Gojirra...
Godzirra...
Godzilla...
Sounds like a logical progression to me.
I spent 18 months at an Open Source company, and never spent a single hour during company time in 18 months working on anything Open Source, including my own Open Source projects. I was certainly "expected" to put in 10+ hour days on the weekends though, without any additional compensation "for the good of the company".
Many Open Source developers are unemployed right now and still looking for work (259 days and counting for myself), and still contributing 100% of their time to their projects, while the "industry" at large continues to fire and lay off more and more qualified developers in the interest of "quarterly revenues". Trust me, nobody is getting more than half of their income from any company for working on projects that are given away gratis as the above slides lead you to believe.
I also reject the assertion that Sourceforge is leading the way in this regard. Sourceforge has been drifting for quite some time, and thousands of developers are leaving Sourceforge for want of better services every week. You don't see that on the surveys though, do you?
Please begin to call this by it's proper term.. Copy Prevention.
Once people start using this term en-masse, awareness is sure to increase along with it.
Copy Prevention , not Copy Protection . Just remember that.
Oh well, /. takes another victim.
It may be unjust, but it IS a law, and it is on the books.
If users install applications into this flash space, Handspring can't upgrade or patch the OS using this flash space. Now the number of support calls quintuple, because users flashed applications into this space (violating their warantee, I might add).
I see nothing at all wrong with what they've done, and it happens all the time in electronics.
Did you ever think that this was intentional? People will assume it's ok to ignore both, since there can be no determination as to which one is "right", and their comfort-level with installing it will increase.
People will feel more comfortable installing it, therefore more people will be stung by it when it timebombs into the next thing.
Microsoft is a marketing company, not a software company. They have plenty of tricks up their sleeve to dodge around a lot of laws. This whole anti-trust trial was nothing more than "practice" for them.
Has anyone noticed that the more "fixes" get put into Microsoft products, the less you can do with them? For a company that advertises innovation, they sure are clamping down on the choices you can make with using it.
Using Microsoft == less flexibility, less choices.
Are you sure you're in the right decade? Article from 1995, which is a reprint from 1984.
Don't believe the hype.
I see this as an excuse for Microsoft to deliver "legitimate" spyware to your machine. If they can shut you down from updates, there is nothing stopping them from "adding" a little update that notifies Microsoft that you are using the software illegally from IP address 12.34.56.78, through whatever ISP you use.
No thanks, not for me. Microsoft Window is still the "Duplo" block of the operating system world.
How lovely is it to know you're supporting the illegal extortion tactics of the crooked music industry by burning your favorite free Linux distribution onto a blank CDR media. It's not even music, and the music industry (note: not the artists) benefits.
We need educated, skilled, technologists in offices of some sort of political influence to correct the misconceptions that companies like Oracle, Microsoft, and others are spoonfeeding these uneducated politicians.
How far away are we from having to present our National I.D. card in a secured card-reader in order to even connect to the internet? Then they'd really know who was downloading what (DRM, RIAA, MPAA controls implemented on your local storage device), for how long (Kazaa, spyware), what email and IM was written (Echelon), what sites you went to (Carnivore), and so on.