What utter bullshit. How many people do you think got a start in games programming, level design, art creation, etc through creating mods, maps and suchlike for "proprietary crap" such as Doom, Quake, Half Life, NwN, etc? How many more do you think will get their start playing around with Doom 3, Half Life 2, and so on?
Don't get me wrong, open source free (and Free) software is great, but this is at most just a reason not to buy Tecmo's products. It's certainly not "another reason to stop using proprietary software".
People pile on more and more work because they don't understand what is hard, what isn't, and what your breaking point might be.
Actually, that's a fairly common management strategy to get the most possible out of someone. Keep on piling on the work and pressure until they screw up, then ease off a little. That way, they're working at (their) maximum capacity, and you're getting the best possible value out of them for the company. Sure, occasionally you'll push too far and someone will burn out or quit before you ease up, but they're replacable.
Ain't treating everyone as just another resource great?
But what's the alternative? Not have those apps able to render HTML? Or use different HTML rendering engines for each of them, increasing bloat, decreasing maintainability, increasing complexity, etc?
Of *course* mshtml.dll is vital for IE - it's the HTML rendering component!
Torn apart by what? If it's not accelerating, and it's not undergoing frictional drag passing through a fluid or gas cloud, etc, why would it be torn apart? There's no force acting on it to tear it apart.
(Also, what planets? I did RTFA, and didn't see any mention of planets...)
The other thing they need to do is stop integrating software into the OS. I can't stress this enough. I don't want to have to worry about my entire OS being vulnerable because IE has been integrated into every possible aspect of my GUI. Keep it simple, keep it segmented in modules.
IE, or rather mshtml.dll, is a module. It is used by other programs. Hence, when there is a vulnerability in IE, it's most likely in mshtml.dll or related support dlls, and so other programs are vulnerable.
You have your wish, but you're wishing for the wrong thing.
That article is from September 2003, yet the way it's quoted in the summary makes it sound like Longhorn has been delayed again this week, which is not the case.
dude, I use windows2000 and windowsXP, and I remember WFWG3.11
Me too. In fact, I remember DOS, too. With the exception of application startup and shutdown, my PC can't really be any more responsive for standard tasks. Startup and shutdown are IO bound, and I don't believe that my hard drive is 56 times faster.
And I still have to spend the same amount of money on computer hardware, to keep my experience from degrading.
Why? What happens to your current software that forces you to upgrade?
Why is it that there's a war anyway? I wish corporations would stop running campaigns against each other as if they were trying to channel G.W. Bush.
It's been referred to as a browser "war" since back in the days of Netscape 4 and IE 4. I agree with your comment about the word war being overrused (it seems like every campaign is a "war on $foo" - we've even had a war on salt here in the UK), but this one predates your country's current administration by a fair margin.
Have you read Absolution Gap by any chance? In it, an entire religion has sprung up around the belief that the gas giant a particular moon orbits once disappeared for a fraction of a second. A number of large, mobile churches trundle around the equator, jostling for position, trying to keep the planet forever directly above them, the better to observe it and so hopefully see it if it happens again...
(Don't get it just on the strength of that, as the idea isn't explored that deeply)
I could be wrong, but I thought that Neptune was a gas giant. This page seems to support that, but also seems to indicate that most of the planet is molten rock, water and similar stuff...
it would be nice to see them implement some kind of protection against unicode letters looking like ASCII-letters
And what of ASCII letters that look like Unicode letters? It works both ways - if you can fool ASCII users by using an idenitally-rendered Unicode character, then you can fool Unicode users by using an identically-rendered ASCII character...
I think it's important to recognize that Microsoft, SCO and other like minded companies will do whatever it takes to distribute harmful and baseless propaganda in order to further their cause
While that's true, there are two other things to keep in mind as well:
1) just because MS, SCO or whoever says something, does not automatically mean that it's FUD, and dismissing everything they say as such is foolish and dangerous
2) there's a fair amount of FUD generated and repeated here about MS and other such companies and their products; perhaps that's fair, perhaps it lowers us to their level. Personally, I lean towards the latter.
We all know it takes a *lot* more sysadmin time and monetary investment in hardware and software to reach the same results with a Microsoft-based workstation or server vs. a Linux or Unix equivelent.
See, here's an example. I've used Linux (Mandrake mostly, but also RedHat and Slackware) and Windows (9x, NT, 2K, XP) as my main desktop at various times over the last few years. In the hands of someone who knows what they're doing, it absolutely does not require "a *lot* more sysadmin time" and money to get the same results. If anything, for the tasks I perform daily (general computing use and programming, etc), Windows just beats Linux, but only because of software. I am required to use my company's Exchange server for calendaring, and so Outlook is a must. I can run Windows under VMWare and still use Linux for everything else, but that ups the hardware and admin requirements. If not for that, and the need to edit Word docs, I could use Windows and Linux interchangeably. (Note that OO is not an option. If Word messes up a client doc, that's one thing, but if I choose to use OO and it messes it up, it's my neck on the line)
You mean you're - thats the conjunction for "you are".
That's very interesting.
The intelligence of most slashdot posters is (correct me if I'm wrong) way above average
Even assuming that that's true, intelligence is no guarantee of a grasp of, or respect for, good grammar. A lot of slashdot readers also don't have English as their first language, so a little tolerance would seem to be in order.
Skillset. I wouldn't know how to secure a wireless network (I'm a programmer, not a network admin), I wouldn't expect a cleaner to know how to secure a wireless network, and to be perfectly honest, I wouldn't know what cleaning product to use for what spill/stain/etc on what surface.
That's not to say that we couldn't each learn the finer points of each other's trades, but we have no reason to believe that that has yet happened.
It's more polite to say "request" than "demand"; I wouldn't get too worked up over the use of the word. Other than that, I can certainly see why you were pissed.
Also often several orders of magnitude smaller files than MS formats.
They're smaller, I'll grant you that, but not "several orders of magnitude", unless you're using a meaning I'm not familiar with. One order of magnitude is a factor of ten, and several is "three or so", so you're claiming that a pdf is "often a thousandth the size of" an equivlant file in an MS format.
Sure about that? I have multi-megabyte pdfs; are you absolutely sure that the equivalent Word docs would be multi-gigabyte?
But you are denying them access to the code of your own application, which is something you promised to supply at the time you used GPL code in your project.
But that's exactly what I'm arguing about. I'm not entirely convinced that simply linking against a library (at least dynamically, at run-time) really creates a derivative work. (Clearly linking against it statically does, as the code is obviously included in the binary I distribute)
Note that while I am a programmer, I'm not what you would consider a C guru by any means, so it's entirely possible that there's something non-obvious that I'm missing.
I see your point, but as I read the GPL it specifically does *not* apply to use of the code, only to redistribution, including redistribution as a result of creating a derivative work (of course).
Now, my contention is that linking against a GPLed library does not necessarily constitute creating a derivative work or require redistribution of any GPLed code (eg if the library comes as standard with some targetted Linux distro). Even in the event that I do distribute the library with the application, as long as I include or otherwise make available the source of that library, surely I have discharged my obligations under the GPL. (To be clear, I'm thinking specifically of dynamicly loaded libraries, not statically linked ones - that's more of a minefield than I'm willing to try traversing).
I'm not arguing what's right and wrong, and certainly agree with you in that if you use someone else's code, they deserve payment, be that in money, code, or whatever. I'm also not trying to avoid the obligations placed on me by the GPL. I'm just trying to understand exactly what does and does not constitute a derivative work. I'm not convinced that the GPL as it stands adequately covers this point, and I think that there is plenty of wriggle room for a good enough lawyer.
People revealed such secrets as their birth date?.
While I agree with your point, that's not as stupid as it sounds. Generally when I phone my bank or mortgage lender, etc, in order to check I am who I say I am they'll ask me for a few pieces of information. Very often they'll ask me my date of birth or my mother's maiden name.
Sure, I'd expect my friends to remember that it's September 11th, but the year too? Hell, one of my closest friends only ever remembers that I'm "about 30". That's good enough for me, but not (I hope!) for the customer service representative on the other end of the 'phone...
The point is that while date of birth isn't exactly secret, it's very commonly used as one (of several) identifiers when confirming your id over the phone. Often for banks, account number, address and date of birth is enough. If I fish one of your statements out of your rubbish, I have the first two; then I just have to convince you to tell me the third.
Then how do new starters (eg new employees, new students, etc) gain access to the system? Or is it like a game - use the system without (apparently) abusing it for long enough and your access "levels up"?
What about new admins - are they useless for 6 months while the machine learns to trust them? Are new programmers unable to code until they earn compiler privileges?
That's true, but it doesn't make it right. "Work until you're ready to drop from exhaustion or we'll fire you" doesn't sound like a very good deal to me...
Slashdot Mirror
What utter bullshit. How many people do you think got a start in games programming, level design, art creation, etc through creating mods, maps and suchlike for "proprietary crap" such as Doom, Quake, Half Life, NwN, etc? How many more do you think will get their start playing around with Doom 3, Half Life 2, and so on?
Don't get me wrong, open source free (and Free) software is great, but this is at most just a reason not to buy Tecmo's products. It's certainly not "another reason to stop using proprietary software".
People pile on more and more work because they don't understand what is hard, what isn't, and what your breaking point might be.
Actually, that's a fairly common management strategy to get the most possible out of someone. Keep on piling on the work and pressure until they screw up, then ease off a little. That way, they're working at (their) maximum capacity, and you're getting the best possible value out of them for the company. Sure, occasionally you'll push too far and someone will burn out or quit before you ease up, but they're replacable.
Ain't treating everyone as just another resource great?
But what's the alternative? Not have those apps able to render HTML? Or use different HTML rendering engines for each of them, increasing bloat, decreasing maintainability, increasing complexity, etc?
Of *course* mshtml.dll is vital for IE - it's the HTML rendering component!
Torn apart by what? If it's not accelerating, and it's not undergoing frictional drag passing through a fluid or gas cloud, etc, why would it be torn apart? There's no force acting on it to tear it apart.
(Also, what planets? I did RTFA, and didn't see any mention of planets...)
The other thing they need to do is stop integrating software into the OS. I can't stress this enough. I don't want to have to worry about my entire OS being vulnerable because IE has been integrated into every possible aspect of my GUI. Keep it simple, keep it segmented in modules.
IE, or rather mshtml.dll, is a module. It is used by other programs. Hence, when there is a vulnerability in IE, it's most likely in mshtml.dll or related support dlls, and so other programs are vulnerable.
You have your wish, but you're wishing for the wrong thing.
That article is from September 2003, yet the way it's quoted in the summary makes it sound like Longhorn has been delayed again this week, which is not the case.
And what's your big plan for getting rid of prodigious amounts of waste products of coal and oil combustion? Pump them into the atmosphere?
dude, I use windows2000 and windowsXP, and I remember WFWG3.11
Me too. In fact, I remember DOS, too. With the exception of application startup and shutdown, my PC can't really be any more responsive for standard tasks. Startup and shutdown are IO bound, and I don't believe that my hard drive is 56 times faster.
And I still have to spend the same amount of money on computer hardware, to keep my experience from degrading.
Why? What happens to your current software that forces you to upgrade?
Why is it that there's a war anyway? I wish corporations would stop running campaigns against each other as if they were trying to channel G.W. Bush.
It's been referred to as a browser "war" since back in the days of Netscape 4 and IE 4. I agree with your comment about the word war being overrused (it seems like every campaign is a "war on $foo" - we've even had a war on salt here in the UK), but this one predates your country's current administration by a fair margin.
Pisses all over Mapquest and Googles latest.
And crashes Firefox for me (v1.0, Win XP Pro).
Plus, is Google maps USA only? Not even Canada? Sheesh!
Fercrissake, it's *beta*! Give them time!
Have you read Absolution Gap by any chance? In it, an entire religion has sprung up around the belief that the gas giant a particular moon orbits once disappeared for a fraction of a second. A number of large, mobile churches trundle around the equator, jostling for position, trying to keep the planet forever directly above them, the better to observe it and so hopefully see it if it happens again...
(Don't get it just on the strength of that, as the idea isn't explored that deeply)
Then how come the ones in the fridge inside the store are the same price as the ones on the shelf?
I could be wrong, but I thought that Neptune was a gas giant. This page seems to support that, but also seems to indicate that most of the planet is molten rock, water and similar stuff...
it would be nice to see them implement some kind of protection against unicode letters looking like ASCII-letters
And what of ASCII letters that look like Unicode letters? It works both ways - if you can fool ASCII users by using an idenitally-rendered Unicode character, then you can fool Unicode users by using an identically-rendered ASCII character...
I think it's important to recognize that Microsoft, SCO and other like minded companies will do whatever it takes to distribute harmful and baseless propaganda in order to further their cause
While that's true, there are two other things to keep in mind as well:
1) just because MS, SCO or whoever says something, does not automatically mean that it's FUD, and dismissing everything they say as such is foolish and dangerous
2) there's a fair amount of FUD generated and repeated here about MS and other such companies and their products; perhaps that's fair, perhaps it lowers us to their level. Personally, I lean towards the latter.
We all know it takes a *lot* more sysadmin time and monetary investment in hardware and software to reach the same results with a Microsoft-based workstation or server vs. a Linux or Unix equivelent.
See, here's an example. I've used Linux (Mandrake mostly, but also RedHat and Slackware) and Windows (9x, NT, 2K, XP) as my main desktop at various times over the last few years. In the hands of someone who knows what they're doing, it absolutely does not require "a *lot* more sysadmin time" and money to get the same results. If anything, for the tasks I perform daily (general computing use and programming, etc), Windows just beats Linux, but only because of software. I am required to use my company's Exchange server for calendaring, and so Outlook is a must. I can run Windows under VMWare and still use Linux for everything else, but that ups the hardware and admin requirements. If not for that, and the need to edit Word docs, I could use Windows and Linux interchangeably. (Note that OO is not an option. If Word messes up a client doc, that's one thing, but if I choose to use OO and it messes it up, it's my neck on the line)
You mean you're - thats the conjunction for "you are".
That's very interesting.
The intelligence of most slashdot posters is (correct me if I'm wrong) way above average
Even assuming that that's true, intelligence is no guarantee of a grasp of, or respect for, good grammar. A lot of slashdot readers also don't have English as their first language, so a little tolerance would seem to be in order.
Skillset. I wouldn't know how to secure a wireless network (I'm a programmer, not a network admin), I wouldn't expect a cleaner to know how to secure a wireless network, and to be perfectly honest, I wouldn't know what cleaning product to use for what spill/stain/etc on what surface.
That's not to say that we couldn't each learn the finer points of each other's trades, but we have no reason to believe that that has yet happened.
I could request (REQUEST) a new ATM card
It's more polite to say "request" than "demand"; I wouldn't get too worked up over the use of the word. Other than that, I can certainly see why you were pissed.
Also often several orders of magnitude smaller files than MS formats.
They're smaller, I'll grant you that, but not "several orders of magnitude", unless you're using a meaning I'm not familiar with. One order of magnitude is a factor of ten, and several is "three or so", so you're claiming that a pdf is "often a thousandth the size of" an equivlant file in an MS format.
Sure about that? I have multi-megabyte pdfs; are you absolutely sure that the equivalent Word docs would be multi-gigabyte?
But you are denying them access to the code of your own application, which is something you promised to supply at the time you used GPL code in your project.
But that's exactly what I'm arguing about. I'm not entirely convinced that simply linking against a library (at least dynamically, at run-time) really creates a derivative work. (Clearly linking against it statically does, as the code is obviously included in the binary I distribute)
Note that while I am a programmer, I'm not what you would consider a C guru by any means, so it's entirely possible that there's something non-obvious that I'm missing.
I see your point, but as I read the GPL it specifically does *not* apply to use of the code, only to redistribution, including redistribution as a result of creating a derivative work (of course).
Now, my contention is that linking against a GPLed library does not necessarily constitute creating a derivative work or require redistribution of any GPLed code (eg if the library comes as standard with some targetted Linux distro). Even in the event that I do distribute the library with the application, as long as I include or otherwise make available the source of that library, surely I have discharged my obligations under the GPL. (To be clear, I'm thinking specifically of dynamicly loaded libraries, not statically linked ones - that's more of a minefield than I'm willing to try traversing).
I'm not arguing what's right and wrong, and certainly agree with you in that if you use someone else's code, they deserve payment, be that in money, code, or whatever. I'm also not trying to avoid the obligations placed on me by the GPL. I'm just trying to understand exactly what does and does not constitute a derivative work. I'm not convinced that the GPL as it stands adequately covers this point, and I think that there is plenty of wriggle room for a good enough lawyer.
Damn, beaten to it. I love it when people correcting the spelling and grammar of other posters make mistakes of their own.
People revealed such secrets as their birth date?.
While I agree with your point, that's not as stupid as it sounds. Generally when I phone my bank or mortgage lender, etc, in order to check I am who I say I am they'll ask me for a few pieces of information. Very often they'll ask me my date of birth or my mother's maiden name.
Sure, I'd expect my friends to remember that it's September 11th, but the year too? Hell, one of my closest friends only ever remembers that I'm "about 30". That's good enough for me, but not (I hope!) for the customer service representative on the other end of the 'phone...
The point is that while date of birth isn't exactly secret, it's very commonly used as one (of several) identifiers when confirming your id over the phone. Often for banks, account number, address and date of birth is enough. If I fish one of your statements out of your rubbish, I have the first two; then I just have to convince you to tell me the third.
Then how do new starters (eg new employees, new students, etc) gain access to the system? Or is it like a game - use the system without (apparently) abusing it for long enough and your access "levels up"?
What about new admins - are they useless for 6 months while the machine learns to trust them? Are new programmers unable to code until they earn compiler privileges?
I'll stick to my passwords, thanks.
That's true, but it doesn't make it right. "Work until you're ready to drop from exhaustion or we'll fire you" doesn't sound like a very good deal to me...