Perhaps BGP being a path vector routing protocol is the current accepted lingo. But, if you are aware of what a vector is defined as, it requires both a direction (path) and a magnitude (ahhh... distance???).
So, the "some might say" from the original poster was an acknowledgement of the fact that calling BGP a path vector routing protocol is a misnomer. Or, to be a true vectored implementation, it must use a magnitude of some sort...
That having been said, it doesn't change the facts.
An analogy is; "Do you call them locking pliers, or vise-grips?"
....Paul
Re:Adventure Shell... old hat?
on
MUD Shell
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· Score: 1
Just be careful. The original Adventure Shell needed a few small hacks. "Throwing something at the daemon" (printing) also rm'd the file...
Of course, the description was that it was eaten... *grin*
It seems to me, that this idea like many things is simply an evolutionary idea as opposed to revolutionary.
I believe that the original author's article is fundamentally correct but there is a bit too much arm-waving and it blurs the description somewhat.
If one were to actually perform more detailed analysis on the proposal, you would probably end up having to produce a journaled or transaction logged system with all their related overhead. The difference being that the journal or xactlog buffer is a battery backup XRAM device instead of the hard-drive itself.
This could improve performance of this part of the system significantly.
After all, I think this is just perhaps another (better?) way of doing the same thing...
Not sure if someone else may have posted this idea, and it's buried somewhere...
It occurred to me while reading this, that there are more than a few companies, orgs, individuals writing virtual machine emulators to run other games. But suppose, instead of having to build some hardware first before developing for it, build an emulator first.
What I mean is this...
As an open source project, design the perfect (or at least really good) game machine architecture. What would the APIs for everything it needed to do look like? What hardware services would be available? Then, write and emulator for this API/hardware. The emulator could be made portable and games (or any software) could be written for the emulator standard.
There are portable libraries already, but I don't think anyone has quite gone this far. There are after the fact emulators as well, but they are limited by the capabilities of the original hardware and/or the hardware running the emulator.
I don't use Napster; and besides I haven't bought a music CD in years. (the radio is enough for me... *shrug*)
Copyright infrigement is illegal even if you think current copyright laws are brain-damaged
Be that as it may, I am very happy to hear about the stance against banning access to Napster by the aforementioned institutions.
Asking ISPs or Universities (or other) to disallow access to Napster is akin to charging the owner of a jewellery store as an accessory to a robbery because, "they display attractive, desireable objects in full public view thereby promoting theft"; or that someone is at fault because, "they dress seductively so they must want to be raped."
Ring! Ring!
JQP: Hello?!? MS: Hello, this is Microsoft, is this John Q. Public?
JQP: Yes. But... MS: Well, we have determined that you are in violation of your license agreement as we do not approve of the way you are currently using your Microsoft software.
JQP: But, I'm not using your software anymore. I've uninstalled it from my computer and disposed of the distribution media and materials. MS: That is the problem. According to our latest license agreement, which was released 2 hours ago, you are no longer allowed to not use our software.
Well, a software license agreement isn't a contract per se, but that wouldn't stop most companies like MS from trying...
....Paul
Parallels between MS App Studio and "Titanic"...
on
Why Develop On Linux?
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· Score: 1
With app studio you get huge apps that take up lots of resources. Titanic was a huge ship that took a lot of resources. Did you see all the coal in the engine room?
Apps on Windows are not properly protected from each other; any app can crash the whole system. Titanic's bulkheads were too short to keep the ship from sinking when one compartment got flooded.
C programming under windows requires those near, far where are my variables stuff. Titanic... "...near, far, wherever you are...".
OK, this article left me with one question... If these neutron stars accelerate due to matter being blown off the star, and assuming that this matter being blow off is less than the mass of the star, the expelled matter would obtain an acceleration greater than the remainder of the star.
So, if the neutron star is going so fast, how fast is the stuff it's blowing off going?
More importantly, where is it going?
Oops, that's two questions isn't it? DOH!!! Three!
Exactly!! Who is to say that this NETSEC found anything! Perhaps they're just reporting everything to make people feel safe; that there actually is someone watching out for them...
They wouldn't need any proof. When nothing happens they just say, "Well, the purpetrators must have caught on to us and bailed. We'll get'em next time!"
Then again, perhaps they really have something and are afraid to tip they're hand too soon. They want to catch'em in the act.
So, what we may be looking at is a three-tier achitecture and develop middle-ware that accepts client requests from heterogenous clients and can process the requests utilising a set of heterogenous servers; possibly more than one to fulfill a single request. With perhaps automatic fall-over to other servers when primary is down.
But moving from X10 to X11 broke pretty much everything. Albeit, there were *ALOT* fewer apps back then. (Hmmm... There was xterm and... ???):-)
But, I take your point, breaking everything currently available for X, including all the window managers, other apps and toolkits which run on top of it would require some serious justification. Then again, where would be the justification for an entirely new windowing system? A new improved X that breaks everything, starts out on a level playing field with something new like Berlin.
Exactly. The point of Free Software if I may elaborate is that software can be treated like most other things you purchase. Not that you should get the software gratis but that you should get it without strings attached.
For instance, if you buy a car, you are free to change the colour, buy new wheels and tires, modify the engine, add a new stereo system etc. etc. Some of which may void the manufacturers warranty I suppose, but, the point is you are free to do it and you must then accept the consequences. While you own the car, you can drive it where you want. In the end you are free to sell the car to someone else. i.e. It's yours.
I haven't been able to read all the comments in this thread. I jumped in a little late and RL intrudes too much. I didn't see anyone else make the same point I'm about to make, but, if you did, I apologize...
What I see as missing is the problem with copyrighted code in the first place. I guess I'm kinda preaching to the converted, but... What is nVidia going to do now? I mean, they've already had a good look at the code to perform the stuff they need. They have access to it as a template/guide. Once you've had a look, how truly original can anything you (or NVidia) write to replace the stolen code be? Yes, they'll fix it in a few weeks. Doctor it up a bit so that it doesn't match character for character...
This brings up a whole issue... Some Linux/UNIX man pages have snippets of code in them showing use cases for the particular function or library. While perhaps not copied wholesale, the spirit of this code is often copied. The man pages for Linux would be part of the GPL too, no?
What about code examples in programming tomes?
Can any code be truly copyrighted? It is entirely possible that two people working independently could come up with the same code to solve the same problem...
Let me first say that I agree with your concern. Although I don't wish to put words to your post... I think this is one of the major pitfalls with Open Source software. Not that I am saying that Open Source should be abandonded...
What I mean is that the average Windoze user that wishes to switch to a Linux dist does not want to (or probably can't) bother themselves with trying to rationalise a number of divergent source trees to get the functionality they want. But, at the same time, one of the strengths of open source is the sheer number of people involved. Even with all the people working for M$, they still haven't cornered the market on all the creativity and brain power in the world.
Similarly, to limit development of the core parts of Linux to a small group may hamper its evolution. This goes for the distros too... Although one or a few may become very dominant, to expect that one distro will be able to provide everything for everyone is a bit naive as well.
The pitfall I referred to earlier is a direct result of my last two paragraphs. We shouldn't conscience limiting Linux evolution by restricting who can work on it. However, this leads to numerous splintered versions which easily become impossible for the average user to rationalise.
What is needed is a group to perform the rationalisation. To take the best from all sources and push that back into a base from which the various distros and freelancers can begin work again...
....Paul That 2 cents will only cost you a penny...
I hope you won't consider this a flame, as I wouldn't mind having voice in the FF series. But, at the same time, FF8 was already 4 CDs; I'll live with the text instead of having 6 or 8 or more CDs....
At the risk of mentioning that almost4-letter word 3 letter acronym DVD... Hopefully this will provide Square with a format practical enough to add voices to PS2 versions of FF.
I agree that Linux is not entirely safe. But, any attempt to stop the spread of viruses and the like must go hand in hand with packages that help secure the system in general.
Simply installing a virus protection program may lead to a false sense of security. Although I am sure I am preaching to the converted on this point. My point is simply that Mr. Garfinkel's article fails to mention this.
The original poster does ask, "What do you think of this commentary?". I feel the above was an important thing to leave out. Moreso because the article itself mentions that gaining "root" access can be integral to the virus attack.
If that is correct, then the implications are astounding: you should only be able to patent something that others can not observe.
Not necessarily. The patent allows you to place information about the invention/process in the public domain yet still reap the benefit of a monopoly over same.
Most patent lawyers probably would have advised the inventor in your example to patent both the rifling itself and the machine to do it. Assuming of course the machine to rifle a barrel could be patented. (i.e. not prior art etc.)
You would think the US patent office would attempt to either educate the patent staff or advertise for a knowledgeable review board to review software patent applications before granting them... ....Paul
Overall, I like the idea of setting up a fund through which many investors from the "Hacker" community could proxy their votes and enter motions or comments into shareholder meetings. Or in fact, even result in sweeping changes to the board membership if representation is strong enough...
One thing that may be easier though with the DVD case in mind. If you look at the DVDForum web site. The site contains information on how to become a member. All it takes is about $1000 per year. DVD technical information is shared with all members. Seems to me, membership would give a concerned group of developers the ability to develop a DVD player for any architechture they wanted. Even those which other companies would avoid or ignore.
Perhaps you don't agree with this. I don't care. I just raise it as another alternative. If the REAL reason for breaking CSS and the distribution of DeCSS is just to be able to play DVD's on a platform that has been ignored by other software vendors and manufacturers, then wouldn't the above result in the desired end? Or do you want everything in life for free?
Anyway, back to the original topic....
For starters: How about some suggestions of what companies would be suitable targets for a shareholder revolt? Any discussion should (and perhaps already is) take place somewhere not so public I guess.
Once this is done, some investigation using the multitude of on-line investing resources can be done to determine how much stock would be needed to actually have a chance to be heard. What I mean is... Microsoft has ~5 billion shares outstanding, and a market capitalization of about $500 billion. Buying 50000 shares is not going to give anyone a strong voice. And right now, even 50000 shares would cost $5 million, but only give (dare I say) us a 0.00001% of the vote. Assuming all shares were spoken for.
NOW BEFORE YOU SAY ANYTHING... I only used Microsoft as an example; a pretty extreme one. Like, who would want to change them anyway. And let's face it, the investment involved would be... (I can't even think of a word)
In principle I agree. If you are doing nothing wrong, then you shouldn't have anything to worry about. It is necessary for the authorities to have access to certain things when investigating crimes.
However, I too wish to maintain my privacy and feel any law like this has to be carefully considered. The original article mentions the case of paedophiles. It would be very easy for them to disguise what they are doing using encryption. Without material evidence, someone like this could get off. That would be unfortunate.
I would prefer to see this law enacted with very strict rules about how it is applied. i.e. There has to be enough evidence to support getting a warrant to supply the encryption key (or plain text versions) of documents in the first place. Also, the nature of the evidence or data being requested should be specified beforehand. i.e. If a warrant is issued because of suspected illegal activity of a certain nature, then documents which may be incriminating for other charges become in-admissable.
My documents plead the fifth on the grounds that they may incriminate me!
Slashdot Mirror
Perhaps BGP being a path vector routing protocol is the current accepted lingo. But, if you are aware of what a vector is defined as, it requires both a direction (path) and a magnitude (ahhh... distance???).
....Paul
So, the "some might say" from the original poster was an acknowledgement of the fact that calling BGP a path vector routing protocol is a misnomer. Or, to be a true vectored implementation, it must use a magnitude of some sort...
That having been said, it doesn't change the facts.
An analogy is; "Do you call them locking pliers, or vise-grips?"
Just be careful. The original Adventure Shell needed a few small hacks. "Throwing something at the daemon" (printing) also rm'd the file...
....Paul
Of course, the description was that it was eaten... *grin*
It seems to me, that this idea like many things is simply an evolutionary idea as opposed to revolutionary.
....Paul
I believe that the original author's article is fundamentally correct but there is a bit too much arm-waving and it blurs the description somewhat.
If one were to actually perform more detailed analysis on the proposal, you would probably end up having to produce a journaled or transaction logged system with all their related overhead. The difference being that the journal or xactlog buffer is a battery backup XRAM device instead of the hard-drive itself.
This could improve performance of this part of the system significantly.
After all, I think this is just perhaps another (better?) way of doing the same thing...
Not sure if someone else may have posted this idea, and it's buried somewhere...
....Paul
It occurred to me while reading this, that there are more than a few companies, orgs, individuals writing virtual machine emulators to run other games. But suppose, instead of having to build some hardware first before developing for it, build an emulator first.
What I mean is this...
As an open source project, design the perfect (or at least really good) game machine architecture. What would the APIs for everything it needed to do look like? What hardware services would be available? Then, write and emulator for this API/hardware. The emulator could be made portable and games (or any software) could be written for the emulator standard.
There are portable libraries already, but I don't think anyone has quite gone this far. There are after the fact emulators as well, but they are limited by the capabilities of the original hardware and/or the hardware running the emulator.
Just a silly thought I had...
- I don't use Napster; and besides I haven't bought a music CD in years. (the radio is enough for me... *shrug*)
- Copyright infrigement is illegal even if you think current copyright laws are brain-damaged
Be that as it may, I am very happy to hear about the stance against banning access to Napster by the aforementioned institutions.Asking ISPs or Universities (or other) to disallow access to Napster is akin to charging the owner of a jewellery store as an accessory to a robbery because, "they display attractive, desireable objects in full public view thereby promoting theft"; or that someone is at fault because, "they dress seductively so they must want to be raped."
Ring! Ring!
....Paul
JQP: Hello?!?
MS: Hello, this is Microsoft, is this John Q. Public?
JQP: Yes. But...
MS: Well, we have determined that you are in violation of your license agreement as we do not approve of the way you are currently using your Microsoft software.
JQP: But, I'm not using your software anymore. I've uninstalled it from my computer and disposed of the distribution media and materials.
MS: That is the problem. According to our latest license agreement, which was released 2 hours ago, you are no longer allowed to not use our software.
Well, a software license agreement isn't a contract per se, but that wouldn't stop most companies like MS from trying...
With app studio you get huge apps that take up lots of resources. Titanic was a huge ship that took a lot of resources. Did you see all the coal in the engine room?
Apps on Windows are not properly protected from each other; any app can crash the whole system. Titanic's bulkheads were too short to keep the ship from sinking when one compartment got flooded.
C programming under windows requires those near, far where are my variables stuff. Titanic... "...near, far, wherever you are...".
More...???
OK, this article left me with one question... If these neutron stars accelerate due to matter being blown off the star, and assuming that this matter being blow off is less than the mass of the star, the expelled matter would obtain an acceleration greater than the remainder of the star.
....Paul
So, if the neutron star is going so fast, how fast is the stuff it's blowing off going?
More importantly, where is it going?
Oops, that's two questions isn't it? DOH!!! Three!
Exactly!! Who is to say that this NETSEC found anything! Perhaps they're just reporting everything to make people feel safe; that there actually is someone watching out for them...
....Paul
They wouldn't need any proof. When nothing happens they just say, "Well, the purpetrators must have caught on to us and bailed. We'll get'em next time!"
Then again, perhaps they really have something and are afraid to tip they're hand too soon. They want to catch'em in the act.
So, what we may be looking at is a three-tier achitecture and develop middle-ware that accepts client requests from heterogenous clients and can process the requests utilising a set of heterogenous servers; possibly more than one to fulfill a single request. With perhaps automatic fall-over to other servers when primary is down.
But moving from X10 to X11 broke pretty much everything. Albeit, there were *ALOT* fewer apps back then. (Hmmm... There was xterm and... ???) :-)
But, I take your point, breaking everything currently available for X, including all the window managers, other apps and toolkits which run on top of it would require some serious justification. Then again, where would be the justification for an entirely new windowing system? A new improved X that breaks everything, starts out on a level playing field with something new like Berlin.
Exactly. The point of Free Software if I may elaborate is that software can be treated like most other things you purchase. Not that you should get the software gratis but that you should get it without strings attached.
....Paul
For instance, if you buy a car, you are free to change the colour, buy new wheels and tires, modify the engine, add a new stereo system etc. etc. Some of which may void the manufacturers warranty I suppose, but, the point is you are free to do it and you must then accept the consequences. While you own the car, you can drive it where you want. In the end you are free to sell the car to someone else. i.e. It's yours.
I haven't been able to read all the comments in this thread. I jumped in a little late and RL intrudes too much. I didn't see anyone else make the same point I'm about to make, but, if you did, I apologize...
....Paul
What I see as missing is the problem with copyrighted code in the first place. I guess I'm kinda preaching to the converted, but... What is nVidia going to do now? I mean, they've already had a good look at the code to perform the stuff they need. They have access to it as a template/guide. Once you've had a look, how truly original can anything you (or NVidia) write to replace the stolen code be? Yes, they'll fix it in a few weeks. Doctor it up a bit so that it doesn't match character for character...
This brings up a whole issue... Some Linux/UNIX man pages have snippets of code in them showing use cases for the particular function or library. While perhaps not copied wholesale, the spirit of this code is often copied. The man pages for Linux would be part of the GPL too, no?
What about code examples in programming tomes?
Can any code be truly copyrighted? It is entirely possible that two people working independently could come up with the same code to solve the same problem...
Let me first say that I agree with your concern. Although I don't wish to put words to your post... I think this is one of the major pitfalls with Open Source software. Not that I am saying that Open Source should be abandonded...
....Paul
What I mean is that the average Windoze user that wishes to switch to a Linux dist does not want to (or probably can't) bother themselves with trying to rationalise a number of divergent source trees to get the functionality they want. But, at the same time, one of the strengths of open source is the sheer number of people involved. Even with all the people working for M$, they still haven't cornered the market on all the creativity and brain power in the world.
Similarly, to limit development of the core parts of Linux to a small group may hamper its evolution. This goes for the distros too... Although one or a few may become very dominant, to expect that one distro will be able to provide everything for everyone is a bit naive as well.
The pitfall I referred to earlier is a direct result of my last two paragraphs. We shouldn't conscience limiting Linux evolution by restricting who can work on it. However, this leads to numerous splintered versions which easily become impossible for the average user to rationalise.
What is needed is a group to perform the rationalisation. To take the best from all sources and push that back into a base from which the various distros and freelancers can begin work again...
That 2 cents will only cost you a penny...
Open Source is one thing, but Open Excrement is quite another...
Yeah! A hernia or slipped disk can really throw a wrench into online sex!
I hope you won't consider this a flame, as I wouldn't mind having voice in the FF series. But, at the same time, FF8 was already 4 CDs; I'll live with the text instead of having 6 or 8 or more CDs....
....Paul
At the risk of mentioning that almost 4-letter word 3 letter acronym DVD... Hopefully this will provide Square with a format practical enough to add voices to PS2 versions of FF.
Of course, Einstein himself demonstrated that light bends in a gravitational field...
....Paul
Simply installing a virus protection program may lead to a false sense of security. Although I am sure I am preaching to the converted on this point. My point is simply that Mr. Garfinkel's article fails to mention this.
The original poster does ask, "What do you think of this commentary?". I feel the above was an important thing to leave out. Moreso because the article itself mentions that gaining "root" access can be integral to the virus attack.
Paul
If that is correct, then the implications are astounding: you should only be able to patent something that others can not observe.
Not necessarily. The patent allows you to place information about the invention/process in the public domain yet still reap the benefit of a monopoly over same.
Most patent lawyers probably would have advised the inventor in your example to patent both the rifling itself and the machine to do it. Assuming of course the machine to rifle a barrel could be patented. (i.e. not prior art etc.)
You would think the US patent office would attempt to either educate the patent staff or advertise for a knowledgeable review board to review software patent applications before granting them...
....Paul
With any luck, Frankfurt will follow suit and maybe next Sandwich, England?
What if your name happens to be... bacon.cheese@hamburg.de?
Overall, I like the idea of setting up a fund through which many investors from the "Hacker" community could proxy their votes and enter motions or comments into shareholder meetings. Or in fact, even result in sweeping changes to the board membership if representation is strong enough...
One thing that may be easier though with the DVD case in mind. If you look at the DVDForum web site. The site contains information on how to become a member. All it takes is about $1000 per year. DVD technical information is shared with all members. Seems to me, membership would give a concerned group of developers the ability to develop a DVD player for any architechture they wanted. Even those which other companies would avoid or ignore.
Perhaps you don't agree with this. I don't care. I just raise it as another alternative. If the REAL reason for breaking CSS and the distribution of DeCSS is just to be able to play DVD's on a platform that has been ignored by other software vendors and manufacturers, then wouldn't the above result in the desired end? Or do you want everything in life for free?
Anyway, back to the original topic....
For starters: How about some suggestions of what companies would be suitable targets for a shareholder revolt? Any discussion should (and perhaps already is) take place somewhere not so public I guess.
Once this is done, some investigation using the multitude of on-line investing resources can be done to determine how much stock would be needed to actually have a chance to be heard. What I mean is... Microsoft has ~5 billion shares outstanding, and a market capitalization of about $500 billion. Buying 50000 shares is not going to give anyone a strong voice. And right now, even 50000 shares would cost $5 million, but only give (dare I say) us a 0.00001% of the vote. Assuming all shares were spoken for.
NOW BEFORE YOU SAY ANYTHING... I only used Microsoft as an example; a pretty extreme one. Like, who would want to change them anyway. And let's face it, the investment involved would be... (I can't even think of a word)
/uni0/milw/sol01/pl03 7340032 6774917 529948 93%
In principle I agree. If you are doing nothing wrong, then you shouldn't have anything to worry about. It is necessary for the authorities to have access to certain things when investigating crimes.
....Paul /Earth
However, I too wish to maintain my privacy and feel any law like this has to be carefully considered. The original article mentions the case of paedophiles. It would be very easy for them to disguise what they are doing using encryption. Without material evidence, someone like this could get off. That would be unfortunate.
I would prefer to see this law enacted with very strict rules about how it is applied. i.e. There has to be enough evidence to support getting a warrant to supply the encryption key (or plain text versions) of documents in the first place. Also, the nature of the evidence or data being requested should be specified beforehand. i.e. If a warrant is issued because of suspected illegal activity of a certain nature, then documents which may be incriminating for other charges become in-admissable.
My documents plead the fifth on the grounds that they may incriminate me!
/uni0/milw/sol01/pl03 7340032 6774917 529948 93%