Technically its not a job but they refuse all his patches and he lost write access.
Actually I think it was more due to personality conflicts; I can't comment on his technical ability. Users appear to love him, though, since he's very responsive to their queries, but as far as his ability to persuade core of his views, that's another matter.
I agree with you: if 90% of the world were running UNIX instead of Windows, we'd still have heaps of insecure, obsolete old RedHat 6.2 boxen sitting around on the Net because users just do not take security seriously and it doesn't matter what the underlying OS is.
I've pointed out before that the rise in popularity of Linux will not make the Internet more secure; it will merely result in poorly-configured Windows boxes being replaced with equally poorly-configured Linux boxes.
Now too bad there wasn't someway of getting masses of people to contribute their experiences in a organized, topical manner that would make it easier to index catalog. Oh, wait, thee is - it's called USENET.
*slaps forehead* You're right. Blogs have a long way to go before it's possible to accumulate the same spam-to-legitimate e-mail ratio that USENET has. Perhaps we should have the Movable Type people insert an API for spammers, so that they can insert spam at random into people's weblogs.
So the solution to this problem is to whine publically about Sun not coughing up the docs. I don't see how this really helps matters. As if Sun wasn't already reluctant enough to hand out docs to anyone developing for !(Linux) (trust me I know, I work with Jake Burkholder, one of the FreeBSD/sparc64 developers, and he's already gone through this rigamarole with Sun and their damn NDA).
Look, probably what will happen is that EVENTUALLY, someone who's smart enough and has enough time will read the source of the Linux kernel, figure out how things work, and recreate them in *BSD. Where there's a will, there's a way.
A friend of mine worked in customer support for IBM, and he said that not only do they still sell software from the dinosaur age, like MS-DOS, but they'll still sell you replacement parts for any IBM PC ever made, including the XT and the AT. Of course, being IBM, they'll still charge you full retail price, say, $200 for a brand-spankin' new 80287 numeric coprocessor. Whee!
I don't really see how using an ad proxy is being an asshole, on the same level as stealing all the newspapers out of a newspaper box. The site hosting the ad gets revenue for that ad impression whether or not you actually view the ad, whereas stealing newspapers... well, that's just theft, and totally pointless theft at that, because you're only doing it to be malicious. (Unless you really intended to read all the copies of the paper.)
I think it's my RIGHT to be able to install whatever software I want on my computer to avoid having banner ad cruft clog up my browser.
Another way to do this is to use the "+" separator, e.g. user+slashdot@somewhere.com . All mail will get delivered to the user@somewhere.com mailbox automagically (if your mailer supports this feature by default - Sendmail does, I don't think Postfix does out of the box). This is helpful if you only have one e-mail account -- you can create infinite "aliases" on the fly.
About two years ago I found a Kensington 'lifetime' mouse that uses two wheels on the bottom instead of a mouse ball, so you never have to clean it (hence the "lifetime" moniker) I'm really happy with it, and it came with an assortment of replacement button panels, one of which was a three button one so it works great in X.
I hope they still make this mouse; I highly recommend it.
The great thing about the Internet is that it isn't going to go away because of litigation. Assuming the judges overseeing the various lawsuits have any common sense whatsoever, I believe that liberty, freedom of expression and all the other values of a democratic society that we value, will be upheld in future legal decisions.
Most companies litigate because they feel they have no other options -- whether it be that they are litigating out of fear, or out of legitimate concern is irrelevant. Eventually once they realize that there is nothing to fear from the Internet, they might slowly change their business philosophies from one of paranoia to one of "glasnost", which, IMHO, is probably the best thing that could be expected under the circumstances.
According to someone I know that works at Real, there were already murmurings last week of the impending PR disaster. I'm guessing they already had the patch ready.
What I want to know is how financially stable is Castlewood Systems -- are they publically traded, how long have they been in business, etc. If you think I'm making reference to the whole Syquest fiasco, you're right -- I wouldn't want to buy one of these drives only to find out six months from now that the company's gone out of business.
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Technically its not a job but they refuse all his patches and he lost write access.
Actually I think it was more due to personality conflicts; I can't comment on his technical ability. Users appear to love him, though, since he's very responsive to their queries, but as far as his ability to persuade core of his views, that's another matter.
I agree with you: if 90% of the world were running UNIX instead of Windows, we'd still have heaps of insecure, obsolete old RedHat 6.2 boxen sitting around on the Net because users just do not take security seriously and it doesn't matter what the underlying OS is.
I've pointed out before that the rise in popularity of Linux will not make the Internet more secure; it will merely result in poorly-configured Windows boxes being replaced with equally poorly-configured Linux boxes.
*slaps forehead* You're right. Blogs have a long way to go before it's possible to accumulate the same spam-to-legitimate e-mail ratio that USENET has. Perhaps we should have the Movable Type people insert an API for spammers, so that they can insert spam at random into people's weblogs.
So the solution to this problem is to whine publically about Sun not coughing up the docs. I don't see how this really helps matters. As if Sun wasn't already reluctant enough to hand out docs to anyone developing for !(Linux) (trust me I know, I work with Jake Burkholder, one of the FreeBSD/sparc64 developers, and he's already gone through this rigamarole with Sun and their damn NDA).
Look, probably what will happen is that EVENTUALLY, someone who's smart enough and has enough time will read the source of the Linux kernel, figure out how things work, and recreate them in *BSD. Where there's a will, there's a way.
A friend of mine worked in customer support for IBM, and he said that not only do they still sell software from the dinosaur age, like MS-DOS, but they'll still sell you replacement parts for any IBM PC ever made, including the XT and the AT. Of course, being IBM, they'll still charge you full retail price, say, $200 for a brand-spankin' new 80287 numeric coprocessor. Whee!
I think it's my RIGHT to be able to install whatever software I want on my computer to avoid having banner ad cruft clog up my browser.
This story posted only a day after "Congress Discovers Peer-to-Peer Porn". Coincidence? I think not :-)
Another way to do this is to use the "+" separator, e.g. user+slashdot@somewhere.com . All mail will get delivered to the user@somewhere.com mailbox automagically (if your mailer supports this feature by default - Sendmail does, I don't think Postfix does out of the box). This is helpful if you only have one e-mail account -- you can create infinite "aliases" on the fly.
About two years ago I found a Kensington 'lifetime' mouse that uses two wheels on the bottom instead of a mouse ball, so you never have to clean it (hence the "lifetime" moniker) I'm really happy with it, and it came with an assortment of replacement button panels, one of which was a three button one so it works great in X.
I hope they still make this mouse; I highly recommend it.
Chances are CheapBytes will be all over it. I'd keep my eyes out for 3.5 CDs from them.
Most companies litigate because they feel they have no other options -- whether it be that they are litigating out of fear, or out of legitimate concern is irrelevant. Eventually once they realize that there is nothing to fear from the Internet, they might slowly change their business philosophies from one of paranoia to one of "glasnost", which, IMHO, is probably the best thing that could be expected under the circumstances.
According to someone I know that works at Real, there were already murmurings last week of the impending PR disaster. I'm guessing they already had the patch ready.
Only to cancel out of poorly-designed installation programs. Oh, you mean because I didn't agree with the licensing terms? Well, yeah... never...
What I want to know is how financially stable is Castlewood Systems -- are they publically traded, how long have they been in business, etc. If you think I'm making reference to the whole Syquest fiasco, you're right -- I wouldn't want to buy one of these drives only to find out six months from now that the company's gone out of business.