I also hesitated about a PDA... then opted for a Palm...
You can find Palm tools (jpilot) under Linux, Palm Dev Tools (for free), Palm Emulator (to test your dev)...
Much more useful than an iPAQ which seems to be very hardly supported under Linux.
If it's using Linux to support Free Software, I'll remind you that buying an iPAQ will profit to Micro$oft (WinCE is ALWAYS preinstalled, evn if you plan to use Linux on it).
(I do own a Palm. Support for it under Linux is great... never unpacked the CD-ROM they give with it... and there are many apps for Palm, of all kind)
"many users do not follow my lead"
So did users that use a pirated version of MS Windows, pay for pirated versions of games (or download them).
There are perhaps more freeloaders in the Linux world... But here are an infinite number more people contributing to Linux kernel than to MS Windows (as people CAN'T help the MS Windows dev).
I use a lot of linux programs as a freeloader (the OS itself to begin)... And at first, I did not contribute anything... Then, I began to help newbies... Then I came to contributing code...
"...the first OS designed to protect the rights of the freeloader"
There is something that must be taken in account... freeloader are potential contributors.
There is ONE thing that push people to go from freeloader to contributors : the will to leave one owns marks... People want to be part of some groups, people want to leave something behind them... Contributing in free software is a way to do both...
But contribution means knowledge... And you can't ask to all these new users to start to program under Linux...
But the facts that programs are often to be compiled (./configure ; make ; make install most of the time) will sollicitate the curiosity of many users which will have a look in the sources... And the most curious will then try to learn...
"breakdown the number of users of Linux who were in your demographic vs the one who just wanted a great OS... for free"
AFAIK, I know more user using pirated versions of MS Windows than people lawfully using it... In fact, in my surrounding, I'm perhaps the only one to have a legal version of MS DOS 5.0/MS Windows 3.1 and of MS Windows 95. Don't use the other one as MS Windows 95 is enough for the games I play... All the other one use pirated versions of MS windows 98... So where is the difference except that doing such under Linux is not unlawful ?
"the consecutive kernels"
Kernels are a very bad example as these are in no way a "commercially available product", unlike distributions.
Anyway, when I send some contribution, I don't expect to get something in exchange as I already got that (Linux, gcc, Emacs, XFree86, WindowMaker,... and of course the app for which I sent a patch). And that way of doing is beter than Commercial way of doing where they have to add unfonctionnalities only to increase the version number and sell the new version to the so many basic lemmings^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^HUsers.
Although I use Mandrake 8.0 Downloaded, I BOUGHT OF THE SHELF : Mandrake 7.0, SuSE 6.0, 2 Yggdrasil (long ago), Slackware 2.0.
Even if I've many doc and books online, I prefer to BUY THESE IN PAPER FORM. They are quite expensive (1000-2000 BEF for most of them, quite more than "pocket" editions) and I've many of them...
I planned to buy several games from Loki... As I still don't have Credit Card, I'm waiting to have some (request sent some weeks ago). I also plan to ask my fellow Linux users if they want some of these in order to make a grouped order (to limit P&P fees, change fees,...)
I'm also planning to do some donation to Mandrake (also waiting for my credit card).
I give much of my time by sending patches, contibuting to some projects,...
I don't complain when a download is "too big"... I often download several CD images (Debian (3 CD), Mandrake (2 CD),...). I even downloaded my copy of Anarchy Online (I'm betatester so I somehow work for them helping them to find bugs/glitches/...).
I agree that sending E-Mails complaining is by no way serving any cause...
But sending mails with bug-reports (complete and precise), with constructive comments/remarks,... can help them.
These comppanies can't know everything... If the users are pissed off by some bug but only complain by telling "there are big bugs in your program", how could they know where to look... They need feedback...
When taking some action (like stopping Linux AND Mac support), they see cashflow numbers... but are they taking into account the trust they got from the user base ? Would you place your confidence in a company supporting, not supporting, supporting again,... your OS ? By acting like they did, they lost more than the few Mac/Linux users that they could have had... They closed the door for future Mac/Linux developments !!!
If such development would cost them too much, why didn't they use a scheme such
If you want to use our products under Mac/Linux, you've to use the old version (Available for free) but don't forget that access to our network (for the anonymous part) is to be paid.
So, you hope that ALL ENTERPRISES will have to support more than 15 OS ??? Only a few (among them, Microsoft) could do so... that would really be allowing those megacorps to control the computer world !!!
BTW, don't forget that all GPL'd software would also have to support all these platforms, as would other like blender (whith already support some of them), sophos (AV available under both Linux and MS),...
I sent them this comment, directly to their marketing service, trying to be as polite as possible...
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Nearly everything is true... We just didn't think about using their services at all;-)
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I work as system admin in this school.
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As we found out that Microsoft produts are strongly inherently insecure (Active X, VBScript, insecure Java VM,...), we made the switch to Linux to have a beter security in our main infrastructure (servers/gateways).
<br>
As we can't impose any control on some aspects of our network (many restrictions need to be dropped because they interfere with lessons contents), we are looking for advanced security tools...
<br>
But we are in NO WAY planning to switch back to Microsoft Windows in our core system as the step to Linux has opened many doors in what we can SECURELY do...
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We were planning several solutions, from GPL'd one to commercial one, among other, using your system...
<br>
Your step made you barred from the list (even if you begin to work again with Linux platform as we can't accept the possibility of a later step back as this one)
<br>
I know that Linux platform is not as well represented as the Microsoft one (same for Apple Macintosh). I just must tell you that here, in Europe, there are more and more steps to use Linux and other non Microsoft products in Education.
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<hr>
I don't hope them to switch back to Linux... I just hope that the word "there is a potential use for Linux products... but if you join the ship then leave it, you'll lose the confiance of the linux users"... be spread among marketing services...
When I read the report of the court, I had the following impressions :
1) Judges bashing 2600
2) Judges becoming interested... They prolongated the 2600 talk time and continued to ask question that were in no way to 'destroy' their defense
3) Judges seemed to "yawn" at the 2 attackers... and seemed to react "and if they were really trying to screw the honest people with their restrictions"...
4) Judges stopped the second attacker (time over man) to return to 2600 spontaneously and promptly.
5) they left more way to 2600 to express their views by asking questions where MPAA and such answer are already known (always same arguments) but really open questions for 2600
It's only some impression, IANAL, only a man...
Judges seemed to begin with a small bias toward MPAA but to have turned that biase toward 2600 during the auditions.
But there are more and more process about computers and related things... and judges begin to know more and more about that domain... and perhaps can they be not so easily fooled as before...
If it's like in Belgium, judges can't be fired once they are in place (in order to avoid political pressure)... and so, they could think as men and face the MPAA and such... But American law may be different... Anyway, I didn't think that the outcome was bad for 2600...
When I see all this, I find it quite frightening...
I heard that MS planned for XP an online activation of the program (or phone activation ?)...
UCITA provides big software companies with the right to remote-disable pograms and thus, with the right to insert these remote-disable facilities...
Year X : MS Windows 95, MS Windows 98, MS windows NT, MS Windows Me and MS Windows 2000 are not available anymore... By some licencing tricks as well as unneeded compatibility glitches, peoples are forced to switch to XP
Year X+2 : About everyone uses XP. US Law dept decide to start a new anti-trust against MS... MS Answer : "Drop that lawsuit or we'll disable all XP in USA"... US Government can't do anything anymore, fearing that the whole US inductry would fall apart and USA returning to technological Middle Age
Year X+3 : MS controls the world.
This scenario is a little pessimistic... But with more and more being done using computers... and MS Windows... Many monopolies aren't as critical as Computer... A Monopoly in Film, Music or such couldn't destroy the economy of a whole land and make all stop working...
When I see the future, I'm quite frightened...
But, there is another point... Laws were done to protect the people... Now, they become protections of the revenues of the big companies, thanks to lobbying and pots-de-vins.
People stealing other were shown by everyone... Now, people "steal" music (Napster and such) but these are usually not shown as doing something wrong (except by RIAA and such).
When something don't seem fair to people, they don't respect it. And in these times, we see more and more people copying music, films (Region Playback Control enhance this), Software (overpricing and bad quality enhance this one)... They REALLY DON'T THINK THEY DO SOMETHING WRONG... So, it shouldn't be wrong in the laws... When everyone breaks some law, that law becomes unenforceable...
We risk to reach a big crisis in the next years... And it may be sooner that we could think...
By the way, Bill Parish (http://www.billparish.com) had an article telling how MSFT is showing increasing wins but in reality has increasing losses. He tells that by using a pyramidal system in which stock options take a great part, they can do that trick... It's also scary as pyramidal systems will ALWAYS collapse (due to their exponential scheme)...
Ancient greeks knew steam engine (Zenon), knew how to make the big doors of a temple open when someone approach,... then we drooped in Middle Age... Will history repeats itself ?
Seems that this time, Microsoft got caught on his own game of pattenting/deposing anything it can...
And, the worst for Microsoft is that the whole design of his console is based on his name !!!
The only thing that may be worse is Sony getting that name and building a console named... X-box;-) After all the advertisement made by Microsoft around that future console, it would be great...
ZIP :
Perhaps because there is ZIP and UNZIP under most OS. TGZ are unknown to the average Windows User.
CRLF :
Again, most Unix users either have an utility to strip those CR (btw, sed, script perl, dd,... would do the trick) or can anyway read those documents even with the CR present. Windows users can't read those documents well.
That make the whole DB usable by nearly everyone. And it's the whole point of PG : make those text available to as much people as possible, for free.
I think that the mpeg2 library/utils under Linux allows you to encode and stream in mpeg2 format...
It's free (search on Freshmeat)... There is just a small drawback... Those Mpeg streams can't be understood by any Windows Codec (perhaps there are people doing it).
For the rest, it's up to you to decide if you plan to limit your audience to MS Windows users only. Don't forget there are more and more Linux/FreeBSD/Mac/... users and that RealPlayer work on all platforms...
Leaving enterprise decide alone of who can read some media is allowing them, in the future, to lock access to some of them or to restrict it to some specific peoples (who will ave access to uncrippled decoders).
For example : a reportage, if only available on "protected" formats, may be locked 2 years laters if some people find it disturbing (corporations, not governments). And it'll not be something planned, it will only be a "mistake"... So no court order could do anything ("sorry, we just noticed the format that doc was saved in is invalid and incompatible with new systems")
Right now, this signing job is only an option... Okay...
And in a few years, windows will ship with that not being an option anymore... Applications will have to be signed... But they'll ship you (for free of course) a program to sign your own applications... And your license key will also be your signature.
But, who will complain.... Nearly everybody will have signed programs... And MS will make arrangements with 3rd party company so their programs will be MS signed (in order to provide a greater level of confidence to the users thay'll say)
Then, one version later, you'll discover that this little tools dissapeared... It can only be found on the web... But still for free (one step back)... Most of us will have only signed applications, or will still have the program from their previous install so, they won't worry...
And, at last, M$ will decide to remove that program and only allow MS approved programs...
And many people won't see any difference... because the programs they use are anyway M$ signed... 3rd party companies would still (for a while) have theirs apps (and games) signed for free by MS... In order to have DoJ happy... Until there'll be no way back possible...
I know this is a little pessimistic... but it's possible... By making the moves step by step, slowly, nearly nobody will react... And those reacting will be called lunatics... You just have to look at the laws to see more and more laws protecting big companies from the people... while removing the protections of the public against the companies...
The only way around that... free software... will have bad days with these laws...
We already have DVD drives only running after an authentification by the program... And sound cards that needs their firmware uploaded at system boot... And the laws prevent us from going around these limitations ((c) laws, DMCA).
Next step is video cards needing authentification by the OS... Hard drive that have a small unlocked area and the rest of the drive which needs to be unlocked by the OS bootstrap, network cards are also good client to authentification (so you won't be able to mess with a stolen NIC to fool a server by using the correct Ethernet address from that card...)
Are we going to a world where computers will only be able to run MS Windows and where MS will be abl to define which programs may be run (and for how many days) ?
I'm sometimes wondergin why should we upgrade our computing power ?
In practice, I usually play the same old games... mostly Starcraft (yes, not so old...). And a P166 is really enough for it...
I've also a small server, running apache, postgres, proftpd, exim and bind on a debian 2.2 and serving 3 small web sites... These are not big sites with 100+ hits a day... but my cable modem internet connexion won't allow such a trafic...
And that server is a 486DX2-66 with 32Mb Ram. And it has much free CPU time available... No need to upgrade it... he's able to hold the full bandwidth I've with my internet connexion.
So, why should I upgrade my system ? To play those full 3D games ? Most of them make me seasick !!! To play full movie adventure games ? I'm playing the adventures from the if-archive (text-mode only) and spend much more time solving these adventures than these full graphical one...
All is done to have you buy these P4, then the P5,... Not because YOU need them... but because Intel and such needs your money !!!
And when you try to run one of these old programs you'd enjoyed several years ago, you get a message "your computer is too fast" or the game is simply unplayable because it's too fast.
So, I'll leave these computing-power hungry people buying these machines and remain with my good old P233... bought when Pentium I were disappearing...
That reminds me one of the methods used for speech recognition: image recognition.
You convert your sound to Fourrier Domain. x=t, y=f, z(grey tone/color)=F(y)|t=x. You then have a 2-D color/grey map to recognize. And image recognition is far further than sound recognition.
So, imagine you
- FFT the music to a picture
- create a 2-D simplified image
All you still have to do to recognize the tune is check the 2D image of the unknown tune agains the saved 2D images (allowing stretch/noise,...)
What surviving changes will they have ?
on
TigerCloning
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· Score: 2
These cloned tigers will be either put in wild life very early, but they would need support as they have no parents, or later but then, they'll not be trained to survive in the wild and risk to be extermined by other races (not speaking of men).
They could also be put in Zoo... But then, what good is it to bring them to life ? Born to be prisonner is no good.
Nothing wrong with it. twm is still great when low CPU load is needed. And it is very easy to configure.
X-Window + twm is, IMHO, more powerful than MS Windows. But who do still remind twm ? everybody knows MS Windows, even if they don't own a computer or own a MAC/Unix station.
That's how the history is written, by what the people know well... The less known facts are shadowed by the most known. Even if that lead to inaccurate information...
Most of the people forget that steam engine was discovered by the greeks, BC. (steam machine from Heron). The ancient greek did use science for amusement only. It was funny, not useful. Even if in mathematics we use very often the fact that only one line may contain 2 given points, who still think of this as one of the Euclide's postulates ? It's something that everybody know as "common sense" and don't try to put a name on it.
The answer to that question may change a lot to what was the 1st OS.
- may it be the hardware and hardcoded software used to boot from a punch card/band ? I admit this is more the definition of the BIOS.. But, as far as the entry/launchin of programs was done with these cards, it was also the part that allowed to run programs
- May a simple hex monitor be called OS ? It allows to enter programs and to run them...
- Must there be the complex structure of task handling (even if only 1 task is supported, like in DOS), memory management,... ?
- what about computers like the ZX80 ? There was only the BASIC interpreter. May we speak of OS when speaking of these machines ?
Anyway, CP/M was before QDOS which was before MS DOS... for the rest, I can't tell.
The GPL requires that you make the sources available to those who use your version.
If you make some chages and distribute that modified version to some people, you must also make the patch/full source available to them... but nothing requires to make this available to other people.
So, DoD may make changes, distribute it to Navy/... and only distribute the patchs to these, thus, not releasing the modified version/source to the public.
I live in Europe. Here, there are plans to ban MS Windows from government key networks. The two reasons behind these projects are the following (and they do apply in many other situations) :
- avoid backdoors intentionnally placed by the software manufacturer (code can be checked for backdoors). Think of a world where Microsoft keep the US Government in hostage "you stop pissing us off with those anti-trust trials or whe shutdown all your NT system...". And, with the UCITA, they could even have the right to do it !!! Not speaking of information leaks (spying) by the various backdoors (or data corruption ?) Risks from a closed-source system are far to high or governments !
- vendor independance. Think of the case here Microsoft stops to make MS Windows products. All updates stopped, no more bugfixes, no new licences for the new machines to be incorporated in the network, no new-hardware support,... If that ever happens, the system would have to be changed fast, involving many costs (reinstallation, porting of in-house programs to the new environment, buying of replacements for some programs,...) Such a transition would be very disruptive if it has to happen from one day to the day after.
Beside this, the availability of sources is very interresting for military purpose. It allows them to put in their own modifications to harden the security, to cut off unneeded parts (to avoid the security problems into these parts), to hardcode some usually dynamically fixed values (IP address of the NIC for example),... many advantages not provided by MS Windows.
This kind of info can be very valuable to the Emu scene. First, it provides some info. But it may also be used as an help for those who want to try themself to Emu... And an old-atari machine may be a stepping-stone before working on greater projects.
It would have been beter however if Atari has released that info himself as it could have been a step toward Emulation/Old game preservation.
Keeping logs of who connected when may be interresting (in order to help finding those who used their access to hack someone else)... but are useless after the phone company purged their log.
At least one belgian ISP got his password file very often cracked. So, if you can't track the connexion via the phone company, the information is useless. Even more, accesses are often pirated using tools like Back Orifice and such. So the information of what user connected is useless by itself...
Connexions made should definitively not be logged, for privacy and practical reasons. The people who do craking/pirating visit many web/ftp sites, connect to many machines each time they use internet. Those who only make 2 or 3 connexions are those who log on the net, connect to IRC and check their mail. Without forgetting about those web sites with so many ad-banners/counters/... that to visit one page, about 10 different IP are accessed !
Bad formed packet could be logged in order to spot people trying DoS, spoofing and such. again, how long is the question. If you can't track the real people connecting, it's useless.
Mail server use should also be tracked. but no mail content. (remind me of the FIDOnet time when many unscrupulous Sysops spend their time reading the mail going through their machine)
For the rest, AFAIK, log files can be modified at will. So I can't see how they could be used as legal evidence. IMHO, they could only be used as a tool to spot problems. But nothing more. So I think that all what is not needed for such purpose should not be logged.
Besides all technical problems (protections by encrypt/battery/...), there is also one other big problem...
All those who already played old games on either MAME (or other emulators) or old computers emulators (ZX Spectrum, Amstrad, C= 64,...) will agree with the fact that many of these old games may still entertain you for hours.
There is no need for 3D Games, full-movie adventures, 3D sounds,... for a good game... It only need to have a good gameplay...
So, you may spend as much time on these old games as you'd on the brand new, out of the box, costly (to buy and in hardware) games.
I happen to play much time on old games as Gyruss... My old P166 and my more recent P233MMX is enough for that... Some older games (Admidar for example) may even be played on my 486-66. And when I try to launch Z80, a DOS Spectrum Emulator (which even allows me to load spectrum floppies if you used to have a PlusD interface) if even telling me that it can't run on my P233 because the computer is too fast !!!
But the games that you may find on the shelves could definitively not be played on that hardware... too slow !!! So, the new games push us to buy new hardware.
So, the availibility of these old games is not a good thing for either the game software (the time you spend playing these oldies, you don't play their games) nor for the hardware manufacturer (no need for a P3-700 or a K7-700 to play Amidar or Gyruss).
So, the real problem with these copyright holders is not that they would make any money with these old games, it's that these old games could prevent them to make more benefit from their new one.
But they can't honnestly defend this position publicly... So, they try to discourage the distribution of these games, make it marginal, and hope that most of the people will keep looking at their brand new 3D/Full of movie/6-CD games.
The good thing is that they don't go really after those who distribute/share these roms. The bad thing is that they don't legalize them. (see Legalize 8bit roms.)
As for the old computers emulators, why don't the copyrigt holders legalize the use of their Roms (Amstrad had authorized the use of the Spectrum roms for emulation for example). But, some of these simply dissappears (Think of the Sam Coupe, by the creator of the spectrum... It went down with only a few sold and nobody bought it I think). When the company went down as that, what happens to the Copyrights it holded ? Anyone has an advice on it ?
Emulation is a great thing, it's not about making a program, it's about making a good program... like people were used before... It's about making it portable (MAME) or really fast (or both). It's about using all available ressources and not spoiling them by these all-made badly-written toolkits/libs (who named DirectX ?) in order to speed up the development.
There were petitions to have drivers/info to write drivers for Linux, why not have petitions to have the roms of old games freely available (for example, directly on the copyright holder site, allowing it to add some advertizement for his new products,... so they would get something back).
I personnally have 1 ZX Spectrum (+2 Out of Order), 1 ZX80; 1 Amstrad CPC464, 1 Sinclair QL, 1 MSX II, 1 Spectrum +2, 1 Apple II and I regret not having more (Oric, C=64/128,...) It takes less room that coin-ops/pinballs !!!
Slashdot Mirror
FYI, you don't need to sign anything to get the Palm Emulator (which is under GPL) or the dev kit.
You only have if you want to download the OS (but you can aswell get it from your Palm without any problem... It works very well)
I also hesitated about a PDA... then opted for a Palm...
You can find Palm tools (jpilot) under Linux, Palm Dev Tools (for free), Palm Emulator (to test your dev)...
Much more useful than an iPAQ which seems to be very hardly supported under Linux.
If it's using Linux to support Free Software, I'll remind you that buying an iPAQ will profit to Micro$oft (WinCE is ALWAYS preinstalled, evn if you plan to use Linux on it).
(I do own a Palm. Support for it under Linux is great... never unpacked the CD-ROM they give with it... and there are many apps for Palm, of all kind)
So did users that use a pirated version of MS Windows, pay for pirated versions of games (or download them).
There are perhaps more freeloaders in the Linux world... But here are an infinite number more people contributing to Linux kernel than to MS Windows (as people CAN'T help the MS Windows dev).
I use a lot of linux programs as a freeloader (the OS itself to begin)... And at first, I did not contribute anything... Then, I began to help newbies... Then I came to contributing code...
There is something that must be taken in account... freeloader are potential contributors.
There is ONE thing that push people to go from freeloader to contributors : the will to leave one owns marks... People want to be part of some groups, people want to leave something behind them... Contributing in free software is a way to do both...
But contribution means knowledge... And you can't ask to all these new users to start to program under Linux...
But the facts that programs are often to be compiled (./configure ; make ; make install most of the time) will sollicitate the curiosity of many users which will have a look in the sources... And the most curious will then try to learn...
AFAIK, I know more user using pirated versions of MS Windows than people lawfully using it... In fact, in my surrounding, I'm perhaps the only one to have a legal version of MS DOS 5.0/MS Windows 3.1 and of MS Windows 95. Don't use the other one as MS Windows 95 is enough for the games I play... All the other one use pirated versions of MS windows 98... So where is the difference except that doing such under Linux is not unlawful ?
Kernels are a very bad example as these are in no way a "commercially available product", unlike distributions.
Anyway, when I send some contribution, I don't expect to get something in exchange as I already got that (Linux, gcc, Emacs, XFree86, WindowMaker,... and of course the app for which I sent a patch). And that way of doing is beter than Commercial way of doing where they have to add unfonctionnalities only to increase the version number and sell the new version to the so many basic lemmings^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^HUsers.
I don't complain when a download is "too big"... I often download several CD images (Debian (3 CD), Mandrake (2 CD), ...). I even downloaded my copy of Anarchy Online (I'm betatester so I somehow work for them helping them to find bugs/glitches/...).
I agree that sending E-Mails complaining is by no way serving any cause...
But sending mails with bug-reports (complete and precise), with constructive comments/remarks,... can help them.
These comppanies can't know everything... If the users are pissed off by some bug but only complain by telling "there are big bugs in your program", how could they know where to look... They need feedback...
When taking some action (like stopping Linux AND Mac support), they see cashflow numbers... but are they taking into account the trust they got from the user base ? Would you place your confidence in a company supporting, not supporting, supporting again,... your OS ? By acting like they did, they lost more than the few Mac/Linux users that they could have had... They closed the door for future Mac/Linux developments !!!
If such development would cost them too much, why didn't they use a scheme such
If you want to use our products under Mac/Linux, you've to use the old version (Available for free) but don't forget that access to our network (for the anonymous part) is to be paid.
- AmigaOS
- BeOS
- Solaris/x86
- FreeBSD
- SCO
- OpenDOS
- HURD
- QNX
- MacOS
- Linux
- DyNIX
- IRIX
- AIX
- Novell Netware
- ...
So, you hope that ALL ENTERPRISES will have to support more than 15 OS ??? Only a few (among them, Microsoft) could do so... that would really be allowing those megacorps to control the computer world !!!BTW, don't forget that all GPL'd software would also have to support all these platforms, as would other like blender (whith already support some of them), sophos (AV available under both Linux and MS),...
I sent them this comment, directly to their marketing service, trying to be as polite as possible... ;-)
<br>
Nearly everything is true... We just didn't think about using their services at all
<br>
<hr>
I work as system admin in this school.
<br>
As we found out that Microsoft produts are strongly inherently insecure (Active X, VBScript, insecure Java VM,...), we made the switch to Linux to have a beter security in our main infrastructure (servers/gateways).
<br>
As we can't impose any control on some aspects of our network (many restrictions need to be dropped because they interfere with lessons contents), we are looking for advanced security tools...
<br>
But we are in NO WAY planning to switch back to Microsoft Windows in our core system as the step to Linux has opened many doors in what we can SECURELY do...
<br>
We were planning several solutions, from GPL'd one to commercial one, among other, using your system...
<br>
Your step made you barred from the list (even if you begin to work again with Linux platform as we can't accept the possibility of a later step back as this one)
<br>
I know that Linux platform is not as well represented as the Microsoft one (same for Apple Macintosh). I just must tell you that here, in Europe, there are more and more steps to use Linux and other non Microsoft products in Education.
<br>
<hr>
I don't hope them to switch back to Linux... I just hope that the word "there is a potential use for Linux products... but if you join the ship then leave it, you'll lose the confiance of the linux users"... be spread among marketing services...
When I read the report of the court, I had the following impressions :
1) Judges bashing 2600
2) Judges becoming interested... They prolongated the 2600 talk time and continued to ask question that were in no way to 'destroy' their defense
3) Judges seemed to "yawn" at the 2 attackers... and seemed to react "and if they were really trying to screw the honest people with their restrictions"...
4) Judges stopped the second attacker (time over man) to return to 2600 spontaneously and promptly.
5) they left more way to 2600 to express their views by asking questions where MPAA and such answer are already known (always same arguments) but really open questions for 2600
It's only some impression, IANAL, only a man...
Judges seemed to begin with a small bias toward MPAA but to have turned that biase toward 2600 during the auditions.
But there are more and more process about computers and related things... and judges begin to know more and more about that domain... and perhaps can they be not so easily fooled as before...
If it's like in Belgium, judges can't be fired once they are in place (in order to avoid political pressure)... and so, they could think as men and face the MPAA and such... But American law may be different... Anyway, I didn't think that the outcome was bad for 2600...
When I see all this, I find it quite frightening...
I heard that MS planned for XP an online activation of the program (or phone activation ?)...
UCITA provides big software companies with the right to remote-disable pograms and thus, with the right to insert these remote-disable facilities...
Year X : MS Windows 95, MS Windows 98, MS windows NT, MS Windows Me and MS Windows 2000 are not available anymore... By some licencing tricks as well as unneeded compatibility glitches, peoples are forced to switch to XP
Year X+2 : About everyone uses XP. US Law dept decide to start a new anti-trust against MS... MS Answer : "Drop that lawsuit or we'll disable all XP in USA"... US Government can't do anything anymore, fearing that the whole US inductry would fall apart and USA returning to technological Middle Age
Year X+3 : MS controls the world.
This scenario is a little pessimistic... But with more and more being done using computers... and MS Windows... Many monopolies aren't as critical as Computer... A Monopoly in Film, Music or such couldn't destroy the economy of a whole land and make all stop working...
When I see the future, I'm quite frightened...
But, there is another point... Laws were done to protect the people... Now, they become protections of the revenues of the big companies, thanks to lobbying and pots-de-vins.
People stealing other were shown by everyone... Now, people "steal" music (Napster and such) but these are usually not shown as doing something wrong (except by RIAA and such).
When something don't seem fair to people, they don't respect it. And in these times, we see more and more people copying music, films (Region Playback Control enhance this), Software (overpricing and bad quality enhance this one)... They REALLY DON'T THINK THEY DO SOMETHING WRONG... So, it shouldn't be wrong in the laws... When everyone breaks some law, that law becomes unenforceable...
We risk to reach a big crisis in the next years... And it may be sooner that we could think...
By the way, Bill Parish (http://www.billparish.com) had an article telling how MSFT is showing increasing wins but in reality has increasing losses. He tells that by using a pyramidal system in which stock options take a great part, they can do that trick... It's also scary as pyramidal systems will ALWAYS collapse (due to their exponential scheme)...
Ancient greeks knew steam engine (Zenon), knew how to make the big doors of a temple open when someone approach,... then we drooped in Middle Age... Will history repeats itself ?
Seems that this time, Microsoft got caught on his own game of pattenting/deposing anything it can...
;-) After all the advertisement made by Microsoft around that future console, it would be great...
And, the worst for Microsoft is that the whole design of his console is based on his name !!!
The only thing that may be worse is Sony getting that name and building a console named... X-box
ZIP :
Perhaps because there is ZIP and UNZIP under most OS. TGZ are unknown to the average Windows User.
CRLF :
Again, most Unix users either have an utility to strip those CR (btw, sed, script perl, dd,... would do the trick) or can anyway read those documents even with the CR present. Windows users can't read those documents well.
That make the whole DB usable by nearly everyone. And it's the whole point of PG : make those text available to as much people as possible, for free.
I think that the mpeg2 library/utils under Linux allows you to encode and stream in mpeg2 format...
It's free (search on Freshmeat)... There is just a small drawback... Those Mpeg streams can't be understood by any Windows Codec (perhaps there are people doing it).
For the rest, it's up to you to decide if you plan to limit your audience to MS Windows users only. Don't forget there are more and more Linux/FreeBSD/Mac/... users and that RealPlayer work on all platforms...
What about collecting both these enveloppes and the form going inside then, when you've enough of them, cross fill the formsand then them...
These spammers would probably notice they don'thave these addresses in their DB and add them to their Spam DB...
Only do it for FREE info, never order anything as it would turn back against you.
They 'll have to make people work on these forms (if you send empty enveloppe, noone get paid to read what is written in the form.)
Leaving enterprise decide alone of who can read some media is allowing them, in the future, to lock access to some of them or to restrict it to some specific peoples (who will ave access to uncrippled decoders).
For example : a reportage, if only available on "protected" formats, may be locked 2 years laters if some people find it disturbing (corporations, not governments). And it'll not be something planned, it will only be a "mistake"... So no court order could do anything ("sorry, we just noticed the format that doc was saved in is invalid and incompatible with new systems")
Right now, this signing job is only an option... Okay...
And in a few years, windows will ship with that not being an option anymore... Applications will have to be signed... But they'll ship you (for free of course) a program to sign your own applications... And your license key will also be your signature.
But, who will complain.... Nearly everybody will have signed programs... And MS will make arrangements with 3rd party company so their programs will be MS signed (in order to provide a greater level of confidence to the users thay'll say)
Then, one version later, you'll discover that this little tools dissapeared... It can only be found on the web... But still for free (one step back)... Most of us will have only signed applications, or will still have the program from their previous install so, they won't worry...
And, at last, M$ will decide to remove that program and only allow MS approved programs...
And many people won't see any difference... because the programs they use are anyway M$ signed... 3rd party companies would still (for a while) have theirs apps (and games) signed for free by MS... In order to have DoJ happy... Until there'll be no way back possible...
I know this is a little pessimistic... but it's possible... By making the moves step by step, slowly, nearly nobody will react... And those reacting will be called lunatics... You just have to look at the laws to see more and more laws protecting big companies from the people... while removing the protections of the public against the companies...
The only way around that... free software... will have bad days with these laws...
We already have DVD drives only running after an authentification by the program... And sound cards that needs their firmware uploaded at system boot... And the laws prevent us from going around these limitations ((c) laws, DMCA).
Next step is video cards needing authentification by the OS... Hard drive that have a small unlocked area and the rest of the drive which needs to be unlocked by the OS bootstrap, network cards are also good client to authentification (so you won't be able to mess with a stolen NIC to fool a server by using the correct Ethernet address from that card...)
Are we going to a world where computers will only be able to run MS Windows and where MS will be abl to define which programs may be run (and for how many days) ?
I'm sometimes wondergin why should we upgrade our computing power ?
In practice, I usually play the same old games... mostly Starcraft (yes, not so old...). And a P166 is really enough for it...
I've also a small server, running apache, postgres, proftpd, exim and bind on a debian 2.2 and serving 3 small web sites... These are not big sites with 100+ hits a day... but my cable modem internet connexion won't allow such a trafic...
And that server is a 486DX2-66 with 32Mb Ram. And it has much free CPU time available... No need to upgrade it... he's able to hold the full bandwidth I've with my internet connexion.
So, why should I upgrade my system ? To play those full 3D games ? Most of them make me seasick !!! To play full movie adventure games ? I'm playing the adventures from the if-archive (text-mode only) and spend much more time solving these adventures than these full graphical one...
All is done to have you buy these P4, then the P5,... Not because YOU need them... but because Intel and such needs your money !!!
And when you try to run one of these old programs you'd enjoyed several years ago, you get a message "your computer is too fast" or the game is simply unplayable because it's too fast.
So, I'll leave these computing-power hungry people buying these machines and remain with my good old P233... bought when Pentium I were disappearing...
Vapourware has been (ab)used by Microsoft and other software companies to stop concurrence...
Are Hardware manufacturer using the same methods ? Vapour P4 to avoid people buying AMD processors ?
This all is about fingerprinting an audio file...
That reminds me one of the methods used for speech recognition: image recognition.
You convert your sound to Fourrier Domain. x=t, y=f, z(grey tone/color)=F(y)|t=x. You then have a 2-D color/grey map to recognize. And image recognition is far further than sound recognition.
So, imagine you
- FFT the music to a picture
- create a 2-D simplified image
All you still have to do to recognize the tune is check the 2D image of the unknown tune agains the saved 2D images (allowing stretch/noise,...)
These cloned tigers will be either put in wild life very early, but they would need support as they have no parents, or later but then, they'll not be trained to survive in the wild and risk to be extermined by other races (not speaking of men).
They could also be put in Zoo... But then, what good is it to bring them to life ? Born to be prisonner is no good.
Nothing wrong with it. twm is still great when low CPU load is needed. And it is very easy to configure.
X-Window + twm is, IMHO, more powerful than MS Windows. But who do still remind twm ? everybody knows MS Windows, even if they don't own a computer or own a MAC/Unix station.
That's how the history is written, by what the people know well... The less known facts are shadowed by the most known. Even if that lead to inaccurate information...
Most of the people forget that steam engine was discovered by the greeks, BC. (steam machine from Heron). The ancient greek did use science for amusement only. It was funny, not useful. Even if in mathematics we use very often the fact that only one line may contain 2 given points, who still think of this as one of the Euclide's postulates ? It's something that everybody know as "common sense" and don't try to put a name on it.
The answer to that question may change a lot to what was the 1st OS.
- may it be the hardware and hardcoded software used to boot from a punch card/band ? I admit this is more the definition of the BIOS.. But, as far as the entry/launchin of programs was done with these cards, it was also the part that allowed to run programs
- May a simple hex monitor be called OS ? It allows to enter programs and to run them...
- Must there be the complex structure of task handling (even if only 1 task is supported, like in DOS), memory management,... ?
- what about computers like the ZX80 ? There was only the BASIC interpreter. May we speak of OS when speaking of these machines ?
Anyway, CP/M was before QDOS which was before MS DOS... for the rest, I can't tell.
The GPL requires that you make the sources available to those who use your version.
If you make some chages and distribute that modified version to some people, you must also make the patch/full source available to them... but nothing requires to make this available to other people.
So, DoD may make changes, distribute it to Navy/... and only distribute the patchs to these, thus, not releasing the modified version/source to the public.
I live in Europe. Here, there are plans to ban MS Windows from government key networks. The two reasons behind these projects are the following (and they do apply in many other situations) :
- avoid backdoors intentionnally placed by the software manufacturer (code can be checked for backdoors). Think of a world where Microsoft keep the US Government in hostage "you stop pissing us off with those anti-trust trials or whe shutdown all your NT system...". And, with the UCITA, they could even have the right to do it !!! Not speaking of information leaks (spying) by the various backdoors (or data corruption ?) Risks from a closed-source system are far to high or governments !
- vendor independance. Think of the case here Microsoft stops to make MS Windows products. All updates stopped, no more bugfixes, no new licences for the new machines to be incorporated in the network, no new-hardware support,... If that ever happens, the system would have to be changed fast, involving many costs (reinstallation, porting of in-house programs to the new environment, buying of replacements for some programs,...) Such a transition would be very disruptive if it has to happen from one day to the day after.
Beside this, the availability of sources is very interresting for military purpose. It allows them to put in their own modifications to harden the security, to cut off unneeded parts (to avoid the security problems into these parts), to hardcode some usually dynamically fixed values (IP address of the NIC for example),... many advantages not provided by MS Windows.
This kind of info can be very valuable to the Emu scene. First, it provides some info. But it may also be used as an help for those who want to try themself to Emu... And an old-atari machine may be a stepping-stone before working on greater projects.
It would have been beter however if Atari has released that info himself as it could have been a step toward Emulation/Old game preservation.
At least one belgian ISP got his password file very often cracked. So, if you can't track the connexion via the phone company, the information is useless. Even more, accesses are often pirated using tools like Back Orifice and such. So the information of what user connected is useless by itself...
Connexions made should definitively not be logged, for privacy and practical reasons. The people who do craking/pirating visit many web/ftp sites, connect to many machines each time they use internet. Those who only make 2 or 3 connexions are those who log on the net, connect to IRC and check their mail. Without forgetting about those web sites with so many ad-banners/counters/... that to visit one page, about 10 different IP are accessed !
Bad formed packet could be logged in order to spot people trying DoS, spoofing and such. again, how long is the question. If you can't track the real people connecting, it's useless.
Mail server use should also be tracked. but no mail content. (remind me of the FIDOnet time when many unscrupulous Sysops spend their time reading the mail going through their machine)
For the rest, AFAIK, log files can be modified at will. So I can't see how they could be used as legal evidence. IMHO, they could only be used as a tool to spot problems. But nothing more. So I think that all what is not needed for such purpose should not be logged.
All those who already played old games on either MAME (or other emulators) or old computers emulators (ZX Spectrum, Amstrad, C= 64,...) will agree with the fact that many of these old games may still entertain you for hours.
There is no need for 3D Games, full-movie adventures, 3D sounds,... for a good game... It only need to have a good gameplay...
So, you may spend as much time on these old games as you'd on the brand new, out of the box, costly (to buy and in hardware) games.
I happen to play much time on old games as Gyruss... My old P166 and my more recent P233MMX is enough for that... Some older games (Admidar for example) may even be played on my 486-66. And when I try to launch Z80, a DOS Spectrum Emulator (which even allows me to load spectrum floppies if you used to have a PlusD interface) if even telling me that it can't run on my P233 because the computer is too fast !!!
But the games that you may find on the shelves could definitively not be played on that hardware... too slow !!! So, the new games push us to buy new hardware.
So, the availibility of these old games is not a good thing for either the game software (the time you spend playing these oldies, you don't play their games) nor for the hardware manufacturer (no need for a P3-700 or a K7-700 to play Amidar or Gyruss).
So, the real problem with these copyright holders is not that they would make any money with these old games, it's that these old games could prevent them to make more benefit from their new one.
But they can't honnestly defend this position publicly... So, they try to discourage the distribution of these games, make it marginal, and hope that most of the people will keep looking at their brand new 3D/Full of movie/6-CD games.
The good thing is that they don't go really after those who distribute/share these roms. The bad thing is that they don't legalize them. (see Legalize 8bit roms.)
As for the old computers emulators, why don't the copyrigt holders legalize the use of their Roms (Amstrad had authorized the use of the Spectrum roms for emulation for example). But, some of these simply dissappears (Think of the Sam Coupe, by the creator of the spectrum... It went down with only a few sold and nobody bought it I think). When the company went down as that, what happens to the Copyrights it holded ? Anyone has an advice on it ?
Emulation is a great thing, it's not about making a program, it's about making a good program... like people were used before... It's about making it portable (MAME) or really fast (or both). It's about using all available ressources and not spoiling them by these all-made badly-written toolkits/libs (who named DirectX ?) in order to speed up the development.
There were petitions to have drivers/info to write drivers for Linux, why not have petitions to have the roms of old games freely available (for example, directly on the copyright holder site, allowing it to add some advertizement for his new products,... so they would get something back).
I personnally have 1 ZX Spectrum (+2 Out of Order), 1 ZX80; 1 Amstrad CPC464, 1 Sinclair QL, 1 MSX II, 1 Spectrum +2, 1 Apple II and I regret not having more (Oric, C=64/128, ...) It takes less room that coin-ops/pinballs !!!