I think maybe the code comments are a type of easter egg. The feature on comments in early Linux is an example. Some coders put hilarious little snippets in their code - take a look at some of the stuff Larry Wall says sometime. Either way, they're not obvious at first glance - you have to rummage around in the source to find the little gems.
Check the inside of any of the Animal books - "The association of the African Dromedary and the book Programming Perl is a trademark of O'Reilly and Associates..." (or something like that). Every single one of their books. They certainly aren't PATENTING a camel, just trademarking the association. Same as the tennis balls.
Try installing Mandrake with default security level of 5. It shuts down just about everything you can think of. Any services you want, you have to explicitly turn them on.
With all the talk of the Forum for Cold Fusion, I'm surprised no-one mentioned Phorum, a really cool and powerful (free) forum program done in PHP. Some really big hitters (the WB network) are using it for some boards with traffic around 3000 messages posted per day. The administrator says that it blows away the perl stuff they had before, to the point that their servers are idle where they used to be loaded.
Trevize, in spite of not being a native english speaker, has probably spoken with more eloquence than anyone else on this matter. I could not agree more.
Don't bow to the pressure....you guys run this site and you don't have to post anything you don't want to. If anyone has a problem with that, tough tittie because you can go to geocities and make your own site and post whatever the heck you want.
Slashdot is successful because you guys made it so. Don't listen to all those other clowns. Do they have sites getting a gazillion hits a day? I don't think so!
Why on earth would anyone even bother talking to the Pinkerton people? This is a free market economy and, as has been said before, if there is a demand, there will be a supply. This was no more productive than going after gun manufacturers or Columbian coca farmers.
It is school boards and governments who are asking for things like Wave and that is where we must agitate. I remember once that someone put a list of addresses of government representatives up on/. so perhaps it could be posted again. Write a REAL letter....email won't even get past the filters. When someone takes the time to put pen to paper, it commands more respect than a dozen emails so write. Pen is mightier than sword, yes?
Fancy IDE's are for wimps....If you need cross platform, QT is not too expensive for Windows development and then you can use your favorite editor. If you really MUST have an IDE, KDevelop is pretty darn awesome and, if you stick to the QT libraries (rather than the KDE), you'll still be portable. I believe that KDevelop can generate makefiles (or at least configure scripts) so it would probably not be terribly difficult to get the project to work on Windows. Elvis has for ever spoiled me for other editors. I leave trails of ":wq"'s every time I use something else. BTW, it may even be possible to get some of the KDE libraries to compile on windows although I don't know if anyone has ever tried....
It was the fragmentation of Unix that allowed Micro$oft to take over in the first place. The more proprietary Unices that die, the happier I am because we can only win the market if we are united and compatable. Open source allows many people and companies to provide solutions for a _single_ base.
The value of many tools comes from the number of people using it. A fax machine is useless when no one else has a fax. To a lesser extent, the same can be said of Unix - more users = more software = more hardware support = shiny, happy, crash free computers for everyone.
Computer virii have much the same criteria for spreading as real diseases. Diseases like ebola don't spread very far because they kill their hosts too quickly. Diseases like aids don't spread very far because they are hard to transmit. Only diseases like the common cold and flu spread massively around the world because a) they're very contagious and b) they don't kill their hosts, giving them time to travel and spread the disease. It is fairly obvious how hosts in Linux are quite a bit different to win/dos hosts: it's a lot harder to propagate something that exploits security holes (which constantly get patched) on a system which actually has a security (immune system?) model of some sort. In short, it isn't that virii CANNOT be written for Linux, it's just that it is very hard for them to spread. That is why no one bothers to write virii for Linux...the rate of return is too poor.
Amazon sells books, just like many other companies. Regardless of whether they were the first ones online, many companies will be selling exactly the same books at (almost) exactly the same prices. The key in a situation like this is product differentiation. All toothpaste and diapers are the same so companies add special features like stripes or wings or pictures of Barney. Amazon need to keep people coming back because they are PERCEIVED as different/better. So, as Tim suggested, providing more "communitity" type services like review, discussion groups, collabrative projects, etc. will reinforce peoples view of Amazon as _the_ place to go online for books.
I was running Linux on some UltraSparc machines not too long ago and, while I found they were fine as workstations, as servers they seemed to be not quite ready for prime-time. We have a Sun Enterprise 4500 with 8 cpu's that we will probably migrate to Linux eventually but I'm not sure if the hardware is very well supported, particularily some of fibrechannel stuff.
I think that if someone is interested in doing some kernel hacking, some of the alternate architectures can use a lot of work. The x86 stuff is very well supported but if you have access to some other hardware and want to make a name for yourself (or just have some fun hacking:-), try ultrasparc, powerpc, mips, arm, etc.
Windoze is only easier to use if you're used to it. I heard my girlfriend's 11 year old daughter tell one of her friends that "windows sucks...linux is way better" and her 5 year old has no trouble logging in to play games and fool around. The truth of it is, Microsoft is only intuitive to those who have used it for years and expect things to be in certain places. My father had a hell of a time going from win311 to win95 because there were too many ways to do the same thing and nothing really analogous to the program manager with all his programs laid out in front of him. He still refuses to use the start menu. Mexico will produce millions of children who find Linux as intuitive as American kids find Windows. And, with all good fortune, so will India and China. You think some of those kids will be the next Alan Cox or Linux Torvalds or Larry Wall? I bet they will.
I think that the world will change more than even these people predict. So many little inventions have such huge implications when people start using them in ways that weren't initially thought of.
I read about a very thin LCD display which could be implanted under the skin as a "wrist watch" (literally!) Now imagine full color LCD pixel displays under every square inch of your skin. People would be able to change their skin to match their mood, display art, hide in the dark (no more face paint for marines...) and so on. That is like evolution on an incredibly fast scale. The rules of fundamentals like social interaction and sexual attraction can change overnight.
I have a theory that children are gaining the ability to switch gears from trend to trend, absorbing new technologies much more quickly than adults. Look at the "crazes" that hit every year...partly due to marketing but partly due to the transivity of childrens' attention. No generation before has had the expectation to be living in a completely different world every 5 or 10 years. Will we be able to keep up?
I've heard that KDE 2.0 will be using a new window manager KWin rather than KWM. Now I know that KWM is a big fat hog but I haven't been able to find much info about KWin. What are the advantages to this new window manager? Is it an evolution from KWM or a completely new, from the ground up program?
Poor people have a better chance to access technology....that old 386 is now a web-server... Information propigates...people read and learn. Information gets into and out of the country.
Repression relies on ignorance. Technology can help remove ignorance and spread the message to people that, "it doesn't have to be like this." Don't underestimate the power of Open Source and freedom: in many ways China hasn't changed much in thousands of years but as we all know, the spread of information can change things faster than almost anything else. Maybe we can "embrace and extend" China...
I most certainly am not saying that Windows should be the official OS...Only that with a strong government presence, monopolies don't have to lead to price gouging, poor service, etc. It is clear that the DOJ case is moving to rectify the situation right now.
Monopolies are not necessarily bad but a strong government presence is necessary. In Canada we had a monopoly for years in the form of Bell but rates were reasonable and rural people still got good service... Why? Because the government made strict regulations about the quality of service and so on.
Now we're looking at having only one national airline but, if the government doesn't drop the ball, it will not necessarily be a bad thing. Go back to Freud....if big companies are the id then the government has to be the superego. It's not the worst thing that could happen.
When applications can say 'Yo....Orb....gimme a jpeg viewer and a Shockwave plugin....pronto', then maybe none of this will matter. Browsers are just huge, ugly, beasts that try to do way more than they should and we need to get things more modular. I realize that plugin's are modular but it's much more profitable to write an object that everyone in the OS can use rather than just one specific application.
This is the main reason that I hesitate to install Linux on non-tech people's computers. Personally, if something doesn't work, I just go to another site but most people will not tolerate that.
I notice that IIS has gained ground on Apache lately but we still have >50% of the market. With Micro$oft's new seat-based pricing on web-server authentication (starting with win2k i think?), IIS may not seem to be such an attractive choice for long.
We have more and more companies supporting the web through Linux - witness the new server side Java support from Sun for Apache - so these plugins will come for the browsers too. I'm not advocatiing apathy but on the other hand, I think that the swing towards Linux and the backlash against Micro$oft is not even close to being finished yet.
We've more users every day and if 20 million motherboards are going to have Corel Linux with them, we just may see consumer demand for interoperability reach new heights. Linux was started by geeks and nerds but it's the consumers who will make the companies take us seriously.... Soundblaster Live driver anyone?
The second chapter in this fascinating book demonstrates the development of an application to create a Markov Chain. What is really interesting is that they do it in C, C++, Java, Awk/Sed, and Perl.
The complete program in C is around 180 lines of code and is also the fastest. The next fastest program is the Perl version (faster even than compiled C++) and is only 18 lines of code.
On small programs, such as most CGI's are, there is really not much of a performance hit but there is a HUGE development time hit using some other higher order languages. Knowing which tool is right for the job is sometimes almost as important as knowing how to use the tool.
Hey, Linux is competing with the 800 pound gorilla when nobody said we had a chance. If Sun can't compete with Micro$oft, why would be be even the slightest bit frightened of them? So they kill Star-Office....Who gives a flying fsck? It's just one office suite among many and I don't see Koffice, Corel or the folks at Gnome going anywhere soon. Bottom line: Linux has momentum and as long as there are coders who aren't accepting the status quo, we're going to keep on rolling and there's nothing McNealy or Gates or anyone else can do about it. We have an army of millions.
Do people really have so little humor as to not get this? It's a JOKE for crying out loud. It IS a troll but along the lines of a poke in the ribs from a buddy. Just laugh.
one point: Is there not a program which converts ASP programs to PHP3 programs? I saw it on Freshmeat I think... That would mean that there must be an almost 1 to 1 mapping of features from ASP to PHP3 which would make for an interesting benchmark as well
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I think maybe the code comments are a type of easter egg. The feature on comments in early Linux is an example. Some coders put hilarious little snippets in their code - take a look at some of the stuff Larry Wall says sometime. Either way, they're not obvious at first glance - you have to rummage around in the source to find the little gems.
Check the inside of any of the Animal books - "The association of the African Dromedary and the book Programming Perl is a trademark of O'Reilly and Associates..." (or something like that). Every single one of their books. They certainly aren't PATENTING a camel, just trademarking the association. Same as the tennis balls.
Try installing Mandrake with default security level of 5. It shuts down just about everything you can think of. Any services you want, you have to explicitly turn them on.
Well, if this doesn't test the new server, nothing will.
;-)
Are we sure that they didn't make this up to give it a trial by fire?
Reminds me of the April Fool prank on Userfriendly where they pretended Microsoft shut them down....
Trevize, in spite of not being a native english speaker, has probably spoken with more eloquence than anyone else on this matter. I could not agree more.
Don't bow to the pressure....you guys run this site and you don't have to post anything you don't want to. If anyone has a problem with that, tough tittie because you can go to geocities and make your own site and post whatever the heck you want.
Slashdot is successful because you guys made it so. Don't listen to all those other clowns. Do they have sites getting a gazillion hits a day? I don't think so!
Why on earth would anyone even bother talking to the Pinkerton people? This is a free market economy and, as has been said before, if there is a demand, there will be a supply. This was no more productive than going after gun manufacturers or Columbian coca farmers.
/. so perhaps it could be posted again. Write a REAL letter....email won't even get past the filters. When someone takes the time to put pen to paper, it commands more respect than a dozen emails so write. Pen is mightier than sword, yes?
It is school boards and governments who are asking for things like Wave and that is where we must agitate. I remember once that someone put a list of addresses of government representatives up on
Fancy IDE's are for wimps....If you need cross platform, QT is not too expensive for Windows development and then you can use your favorite editor. If you really MUST have an IDE, KDevelop is pretty darn awesome and, if you stick to the QT libraries (rather than the KDE), you'll still be portable. I believe that KDevelop can generate makefiles (or at least configure scripts) so it would probably not be terribly difficult to get the project to work on Windows. Elvis has for ever spoiled me for other editors. I leave trails of ":wq"'s every time I use something else. BTW, it may even be possible to get some of the KDE libraries to compile on windows although I don't know if anyone has ever tried....
It was the fragmentation of Unix that allowed Micro$oft to take over in the first place. The more proprietary Unices that die, the happier I am because we can only win the market if we are united and compatable. Open source allows many people and companies to provide solutions for a _single_ base.
The value of many tools comes from the number of people using it. A fax machine is useless when no one else has a fax. To a lesser extent, the same can be said of Unix - more users = more software = more hardware support = shiny, happy, crash free computers for everyone.
Computer virii have much the same criteria for spreading as real diseases. Diseases like ebola don't spread very far because they kill their hosts too quickly. Diseases like aids don't spread very far because they are hard to transmit. Only diseases like the common cold and flu spread massively around the world because a) they're very contagious and b) they don't kill their hosts, giving them time to travel and spread the disease. It is fairly obvious how hosts in Linux are quite a bit different to win/dos hosts: it's a lot harder to propagate something that exploits security holes (which constantly get patched) on a system which actually has a security (immune system?) model of some sort. In short, it isn't that virii CANNOT be written for Linux, it's just that it is very hard for them to spread. That is why no one bothers to write virii for Linux...the rate of return is too poor.
Amazon sells books, just like many other companies. Regardless of whether they were the first ones online, many companies will be selling exactly the same books at (almost) exactly the same prices. The key in a situation like this is product differentiation. All toothpaste and diapers are the same so companies add special features like stripes or wings or pictures of Barney. Amazon need to keep people coming back because they are PERCEIVED as different/better. So, as Tim suggested, providing more "communitity" type services like review, discussion groups, collabrative projects, etc. will reinforce peoples view of Amazon as _the_ place to go online for books.
I was running Linux on some UltraSparc machines not too long ago and, while I found they were fine as workstations, as servers they seemed to be not quite ready for prime-time. We have a Sun Enterprise 4500 with 8 cpu's that we will probably migrate to Linux eventually but I'm not sure if the hardware is very well supported, particularily some of fibrechannel stuff.
:-), try ultrasparc, powerpc, mips, arm, etc.
I think that if someone is interested in doing some kernel hacking, some of the alternate architectures can use a lot of work. The x86 stuff is very well supported but if you have access to some other hardware and want to make a name for yourself (or just have some fun hacking
Windoze is only easier to use if you're used to it. I heard my girlfriend's 11 year old daughter tell one of her friends that "windows sucks...linux is way better" and her 5 year old has no trouble logging in to play games and fool around. The truth of it is, Microsoft is only intuitive to those who have used it for years and expect things to be in certain places. My father had a hell of a time going from win311 to win95 because there were too many ways to do the same thing and nothing really analogous to the program manager with all his programs laid out in front of him. He still refuses to use the start menu. Mexico will produce millions of children who find Linux as intuitive as American kids find Windows. And, with all good fortune, so will India and China. You think some of those kids will be the next Alan Cox or Linux Torvalds or Larry Wall? I bet they will.
I think that the world will change more than even these people predict. So many little inventions have such huge implications when people start using them in ways that weren't initially thought of.
I read about a very thin LCD display which could be implanted under the skin as a "wrist watch" (literally!) Now imagine full color LCD pixel displays under every square inch of your skin. People would be able to change their skin to match their mood, display art, hide in the dark (no more face paint for marines...) and so on. That is like evolution on an incredibly fast scale. The rules of fundamentals like social interaction and sexual attraction can change overnight.
I have a theory that children are gaining the ability to switch gears from trend to trend, absorbing new technologies much more quickly than adults. Look at the "crazes" that hit every year...partly due to marketing but partly due to the transivity of childrens' attention. No generation before has had the expectation to be living in a completely different world every 5 or 10 years. Will we be able to keep up?
I've heard that KDE 2.0 will be using a new window manager KWin rather than KWM. Now I know that KWM is a big fat hog but I haven't been able to find much info about KWin. What are the advantages to this new window manager? Is it an evolution from KWM or a completely new, from the ground up program?
Here's the thing:
Poor people have a better chance to access technology....that old 386 is now a web-server...
Information propigates...people read and learn. Information gets into and out of the country.
Repression relies on ignorance. Technology can help remove ignorance and spread the message to people that, "it doesn't have to be like this." Don't underestimate the power of Open Source and freedom: in many ways China hasn't changed much in thousands of years but as we all know, the spread of information can change things faster than almost anything else. Maybe we can "embrace and extend" China...
I most certainly am not saying that Windows should be the official OS...Only that with a strong government presence, monopolies don't have to lead to price gouging, poor service, etc. It is clear that the DOJ case is moving to rectify the situation right now.
Monopolies are not necessarily bad but a strong government presence is necessary. In Canada we had a monopoly for years in the form of Bell but rates were reasonable and rural people still got good service... Why? Because the government made strict regulations about the quality of service and so on.
Now we're looking at having only one national airline but, if the government doesn't drop the ball, it will not necessarily be a bad thing. Go back to Freud....if big companies are the id then the government has to be the superego. It's not the worst thing that could happen.
When applications can say 'Yo....Orb....gimme a jpeg viewer and a Shockwave plugin....pronto', then maybe none of this will matter. Browsers are just huge, ugly, beasts that try to do way more than they should and we need to get things more modular. I realize that plugin's are modular but it's much more profitable to write an object that everyone in the OS can use rather than just one specific application.
This is the main reason that I hesitate to install Linux on non-tech people's computers. Personally, if something doesn't work, I just go to another site but most people will not tolerate that.
I notice that IIS has gained ground on Apache lately but we still have >50% of the market. With Micro$oft's new seat-based pricing on web-server authentication (starting with win2k i think?), IIS may not seem to be such an attractive choice for long.
We have more and more companies supporting the web through Linux - witness the new server side Java support from Sun for Apache - so these plugins will come for the browsers too. I'm not advocatiing apathy but on the other hand, I think that the swing towards Linux and the backlash against Micro$oft is not even close to being finished yet.
We've more users every day and if 20 million motherboards are going to have Corel Linux with them, we just may see consumer demand for interoperability reach new heights. Linux was started by geeks and nerds but it's the consumers who will make the companies take us seriously.... Soundblaster Live driver anyone?
The second chapter in this fascinating book demonstrates the development of an application to create a Markov Chain. What is really interesting is that they do it in C, C++, Java, Awk/Sed, and Perl.
The complete program in C is around 180 lines of code and is also the fastest. The next fastest program is the Perl version (faster even than compiled C++) and is only 18 lines of code.
On small programs, such as most CGI's are, there is really not much of a performance hit but there is a HUGE development time hit using some other higher order languages. Knowing which tool is right for the job is sometimes almost as important as knowing how to use the tool.
Hey, Linux is competing with the 800 pound gorilla when nobody said we had a chance. If Sun can't compete with Micro$oft, why would be be even the slightest bit frightened of them? So they kill Star-Office....Who gives a flying fsck? It's just one office suite among many and I don't see Koffice, Corel or the folks at Gnome going anywhere soon. Bottom line: Linux has momentum and as long as there are coders who aren't accepting the status quo, we're going to keep on rolling and there's nothing McNealy or Gates or anyone else can do about it. We have an army of millions.
Do people really have so little humor as to not get this? It's a JOKE for crying out loud. It IS
a troll but along the lines of a poke in the ribs from a buddy. Just laugh.
one point: Is there not a program which converts ASP programs to PHP3 programs? I saw it on Freshmeat I think... That would mean that there must be an almost 1 to 1 mapping of features from ASP to PHP3 which would make for an interesting benchmark as well