And what, pray tell, was actually gained by that tragic lack of discipline and style? Oh, yeah, you showed him! I'll bet he'll be appropriately meek and approving of Linux all the rest of his days. (Oh, sorry, GNU/Linux. Don't hit.)
Thugs.
What will actually happen when the children pull out their little code pop-guns and fire away at grownups is that everyone will see that they are children. The guy who made a mistake will act like a real person and own up to it, and the wee tykes launching smurf attacks will rant and attempt to defend their actions. And all the rest of the grownups will make a quick connection: Linux = freaks. Thanks awfully. I like Linux, and admire what the community is trying to do. But I truly hope this doesn't mean I have to be on your side. The enemy of my enemy may still be a childish prick.
If you're going to attack using computers over something like this, at least have the decency to do it well. Write your own tools. Check your spelling. The zealots here weren't just out of line, they were tacky and graceless. C'mon, forging only *part* of your email and personal info on a mailbomb attack? Pay attention! How tough would it have been to just plug in a random loop through the most popular firstnames over at babynames.com? If a group I'm a member of has to be labelled as a bunch of rude bastards, I'd prefer that we were at least rude bastards with style. You can't defend your OS with a display of poor computing skills.
I'm not complaining about the enthusiasm. The choice to break the law or act irresponsibly is between you and whatever God will have you. But at least show enough pride to make it worth it.
Sure, they'd arrest all of you. So? You were going to plead not guilty after posting your intentions here? Maybe they don't have the jail space for all of you. So they'll have to settle for probation, community service (you like picking up trash, right?), and some gi-normous fine with your wages garnished until you die. You get to be part of a batch justice process. A large joint trial for you and your hundred closest, with a template sentence. Followed by the next group, and the next, in lots as big as the courtroom will hold. And it'll still be a felony conviction, so no voting, no guns, good luck getting a job to pay that whopping fine. Your terms of probation will probably include the old-standby "no using a computer" for the next three years, good luck staying current and marketable. And I'm sure your probation officer will be a caring, understanding, people-person, who won't declare you in violation for quitting that miserable job you got right after your conviction when your old gig tossed you. You did know that probabtion officers get to control your life right up until the absolute last day of your time? You'll miss those friends, but associating with anyone else who got nailed at the same time is a violation of your probation.
If tons of folks are convicted, you won't all get to hit the speaker circuit. No big advance cash from the book. No TV time to espouse your cause. No "hey, I *wrote* this cool thing." Nope, you'll just be some copycat anarchist wannbe with delusions of adequacy.
Yup, yup, sign me up.
That's not even sheep behavior, you've moved on to lemming. Congrats.
-reemul
who actually prefers that the criminally silly declare themselves in such a way, it makes them easier to spot
Not necessarily. Unless the interface is completely different from anything I've ever seen before and so non-intuitive that I can't navigate (which is a major problem anyway) there are enormous test possibilities possible without knowing anything about the code. There really is a science to testing, and its applicable no matter what the app is supposed to do. One of the better testers here used to test children's educational software, now he handles credit card data feeds. Its a matter of knowing how to test, not what is tested. Sure, deep knowledge of the code helps develop test cases, but if the end user can't tell in the interface what the result should be, the app is broken anyway.
Sure, for kernels and compilers, testing requires more knowledge of what is going on under the hood, but what percentage of applications does that represent? Fairly small. And a separate tester is still useful. Maybe a junior dev, someone not quite at the level of writing that sort of code yet, just hitting it to catch stuff that the original tester overlooked. The fact that the person knows how to code doesn't mean he isn't a tester, its the process not the person that is important.
And I *never* want to touch a compiler or kernel released without systematic testing. That's too important to hope that beta testers caught.
We don't really do bureaucracy here. At the upper levels, sure, but us cube rats just put our heads together and get the work done. Thinking that a systemic testing effort requires some Microsoft-like business model is dangerous. We do reviews, but they aren't that formal. Beer is generally involved, mostly paid for by the company. Drawing a connection between systematic testing efforts and big business is harmful:lots of folks in the Linux community are leery of such organizations and might be swayed away from professional level testing just because of such statements. I don't wear a tie, I don't even shave every day. Some of the guys don't wear shoes. Does this seem like some IBM-like blue blazer wearing company? Quite frankly, those folks don't test well. Sometimes you just need to try something weird. And sometimes the beer helps.
How can a rational complaint about the lack of professional level testing be considered FUD? It is simply and demonstrably true.
Based on your assertion that "software that is widely used gets plenty of testing", Office97 is the most tested code in existence. Do you believe that it is the most bug free? I don't. MS releases patches only after they have been tested by thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of pros and beta testers, and they still have problems. This isn't because the programmers at Microsoft simply aren't any good. They're just guys working on code. Its just a matter of increased complexity causing an exponential rise in bug risk. The problem with MS apps lies in the marketing pukes forcing inclusion of enormous feature lists that simply are too complex to work well together.
So the sheer number of eyes looking at an app doesn't necessarily mean that all the bugs are caught.
Your assertion that Open Source code gets more testing than commercial software is simply wrong. My most recent release was just a maintenance update to our oldest product line. In the three month product cycle, it got over 2000 hours of professional testing, just from the QA team for that release, not including all the beta testers and devs and in-house testnights where we got other departments to pitch in. Just 4 full-time testers. And this isn't in any way analogous to 2000 hours of enduser testing. This was systematic, planned testing by people intimately familiar with not only the present state of the code, but how it used to be, how it changed, and how real people use it in the real world. There wasn't any overlap or duplication of effort, no less sexy pieces skipped over. Our test plans and coverage are the results of years of updates and input. And I'm sure we still missed stuff.
Without similar professional level testing efforts, you just won't find the same bugs. You'll find all the twinkie cosmetic display problems with file:print, but you'll never find the crashing problem with printing a file over 10 mb with a name over 64 characters. You'll do wonderful with US settings, but you'll never find out that you completely mishandle Malaysian currency. (the ringgit, btw.) Until some enduser hits it. And then its too late. They'll tell their boss, and he'll decide that "it's Linux' fault, he told them they shouldn't use it for production work", and MS gets to do a smug press release.
Having lots of endusers touch an app will find lots of bugs (if the bugs are there to be found), but thats the wrong time to find them. Bugs in released code are the ones that kill an app or a company. You can't treat the world as beta testers and expect to earn respect.
And maybe I'm over-sensitive, but FUD is a trifle insulting. Its seems to indicate that I'm part of some overarching plan to whittle away at Linux' respect and viability. Personally, I believe that the community's respect in the eyes of the world is much more harmed by touchy defensive types who cry conspiracy when anyone dares offer even the most constructive criticism of not even the code, but a portion of the process. So, 'edgy', while I'm a supporter of Linux, I hope that doesn't mean I have to be on your side.
Yes, the techie works for Microsoft. Of course he will lean that way. But that doesn't mean that absolutely everything that he says can be thrown out as clearly biased or FUD.
The point I caught was his comment on testing the code. And its something I've brought up here in the past: lots of Linux programmers, not a lot of QA. I personally work as a tester - in Redmond, no less, though not at MS - and our job is just as important to getting a usable app out the door as the devs. Software testing is an entirely different discipline from software development, but I don't see any articles about testing open source code, nothing about blackbox vs. glassbox methods; heck, we're not even an option in the polls. Pure code review doesn't find all the bugs. Period. You have to have someone willing and able to methodically and carefully test every damn part of the final app. Not the debug version, it functions differently. Not scripting against the underlying structure, or at least not only that. Actually clicking the buttons, one at a time. Putting in just bonkers stuff in all the input fields. Race conditions. Stress tests. Sure, you've got the code in front of you, but nobody does any work with source. Test the *app*.
But testing isn't cool. Testers don't get movies of the week written about them. And some testing is flat boring. (Trust me, repeating the exact same test cases in 7 different browser versions will make you start looking at the nearby water tower and remebering that it takes 42 muscles to smile, but only 4 to pull the trigger on a decent sniper rifle. Which is why I'm the lead and make somebody else do it.) But untested code, no matter how clever the programmer, isn't going to conquer the world. And devs make lousy testers. It's just a different mindset.
MTV did this a while back, 'cracking' their own site as a publicity stunt for some character they wanted to use for something or other. OF COURSE they got caught, and they got soundly spanked in the press for a while. No, I don't remember the character's name, but neither can anyone else. I think they took their licks and crawled home never to mention it again.
Combining annoying misuse of terminology with a fake stunt will - in the end - get them stomped. Even the script-kiddies (lets face it, the target audience) will avoid them like homework. "Kipling? Those guys are LAME. No kewl d00d uses Kipling!" Heard in schoolyards around the land.
(In a just world, phrases like that would immediately be followed by automatic gunfire, but oh, well.)
Since they posted a public (and well publicized) invitation to hack their site, does this mean that its open season on kipling.com, without those nasty legal possibilities? (But Mr. Fed, they *said* it was OK!) Heh.
Altruism is wonderful. People helping others from the sheer joy of it, without any desire for recompense or even recognition, is a glorious and precious thing.
But how does it put food on the table? If I have some wonderful idea, shouldn't I be entitled to make some money from it? Without some form of ownership of ideas, someone else can simply take my idea and use it and not give me a thin cent. I'm stuck saying "do you want fries with that?" Uncool. I wouldn't have the job I have now, because my company wouldn't exist. The software company I work at competes in a market with some very big names. We do pretty darn well because we came up with some clever ideas, and the big guys have not yet been so clever as us. If my company didn't *own* those clever ideas, the big guys could simply adopt them for their own. In the enterprise markets, customers prefer to work with the big guys, so we'd be toast. All we have is a better product. If the big guy can take what makes our product better without having to pay us, we're sunk.
And what about motivation? Capitalism works, in part, because it is dependable and predictable. If you pay people, they will tend to do what they are paid to do. Some folks will continue to do it if they aren't paid. This is great, more power to them. They drive good software development, and nearly the whole open source movement. I say nearly because a growing trend is for other companies with an interest in the market are paying programmers to contribute. (Y'know, like stuff from Red Hat Labs.) Its the same folks, they could have written the code anyway, but they didn't until they were paid to do so. Where did the money come from? Companies who got paid for their ideas. Red Hat, using GNOME as the example, has done some clever things with their distribution, and gotten some useful name recognition. However, they only make money from that name recognition because they are the only ones who get to sell that product package with that name. If just anybody could clone the disks and manuals and sell it, people will do so and the market will shift until nobody is making any more money than they could putting the cash in a savings account. Bye-bye finance for open source. The Red Hat distro becomes a commodity product, just like nails and pencils. IP is even easier to copy, as pointed out in the essay, there aren't even any real startup costs as barriers to market entry. Just need some printing equipment and a CD burner and you're off. IBM owns more software patents than anybody else, and they have used some of their money to pay for Java development. Good. But they aren't doing it because its the right thing to do, they hope that in the end they will make more money from the effort than they spent. Which is their clear, legal duty to their stockholders. So free software is funded by ownership of ideas.
Yes, ownership of ideas can hurt the community and small teams. But it is also a protection. Without any form of ownership of IP, all licensing, EVEN THE GPL, is gone. Sure, you can have anything of Microsoft's that you want, but MS can take anything they want, too. And they have more money, and more marketing. So all of RMS's programming efforts go straight into a bank account in Redmond. I doubt they'll thank him. Getting rid of ownership of ideas will change the market, maybe hurt some of the big guys, but once everything settles, it'll be a group of companies that produce everything, and *all* of the small guys will be gone. They had no protection under the law, and the only money they'd ever get for their ideas is a salary from the company who took his ideas if they decide to bring him on.
If we were starting from zero and built a society that had never had ownership of ideas, maybe it could work. But not now, not here.
Arguments can be made about the *form* of IP ownership. Patent vs. copyright, owning software vs. licensing it, all of these can be debated and legislated. But the entire concept of the ownership of ideas cannot be scrapped.
Let's start with the use of real names. There are several reasons why this is a bad idea, and only one actually decent one: accountability. Admittedly, some folks would be less likely to post offensive or just plain stupid things if their own real name was attached to it for all to see, and that is a plus. They might also be less likely to post unpopular or controversial views, and that is the biggest weakness. Other people really value their privacy a great deal, and wouldn't use their real name to post *anything* much less something juicy or passionate, and they would be a great loss, too. And some people just don't use their real names much on the net, so using it doesn't make a lot of sense anyway. I knew a guy in college who always went by his nick, doubt. I happened to know that this was derived from his real name, and even knew what it was, but nobody used it. If there was some post with his actual parent-given monniker, I'd have no idea who that guy was. But if it said 'doubt' I think, hmm, oh yeah, I know him. I use reemul on the net. I'm not trying to hide behind some pseudonym, I just like the name. Anyone who wants to track down all my real-life info is welcome to mosey on over to internic and lookup the contact info on my domain, listed above. I think it even has my phone number.
Next is cost. Your (I feel) arbitrary $29 figure might have some utility in filtering the participants in Slashdot, in the sense that it may limit users to only those who feel that Slashdot is important enough to pay the money. This would certainly have the effect of drastically diminishing the numbers of casual users, folks who only wander by from time-to-time and post rarely if at all. But is that a good thing? Perhaps a person attracted to the site by word-of-mouth or a link in some other article has something valuable to say, or is at least amusing. Why cut them off? And certainly I doubt that this would cut down on trolls and flames. If I pony up the cash, I get to say whatever I want. Killing my access means that Rob would have to give me a refund, with all the touch costs and handling fees and problems with the credit card billing company. Ugh. So we may get less folks, but perhaps less inhibited folks. And what about people for whom $29 is a hardship? The students, the struggling freelancers, the international readers on the down side of the exchange rate? I wouldn't want to lose them, either. On the other side are folks for whom $29 isn't really that much at all, who could pay it and still not really care about the site. I blow that much on my lunch break buying a book and a nice meal most every weekday, $29 doesn't indicate commitment on my part.
(And just for you conspiracy theorists, do you think that the all those Microsoft employees you suspect are posting will be deterred by a measly little $29 fee?)
So, while I understand your concerns, I don't think that your ideas are the way to go.
Please pay attention to the recent news. No-one is getting anything other than publicity from the recent efforts to get a refund directly from Microsoft. They didn't sell you Windows. Your PC manufacturer did. It isn't nice, it isn't fair, but that's the way it is. And good luck getting a refund from them, either. The inclusion of whatever version of windows you're getting is clearly marked in the description of the PC, so by purchasing the machine, you are electing to have windows. Or at least such a case can be made. After all, you do have the option to buy a machine from someone who won't put nasty MS products all over your nice new HD.
And if you install your own OS on a PC after you get it from the manufacturer, you are on your own, warranty and support wise. That's the main difference between factory installed and roll-your-own OS. And that's what Dell is charging for.
The $99 isn't for the code, the drives are cloned and the software is free, its for support staff. If they are installing it themselves, they are committing to having it work, and supporting it through their normal channels. They have to pay for testers, to certify the few configurations they presently offer. They have to pay for devs, to tweak everything for their specific config. And they have to pay to train and staff the phone monkeys, to handle all the wacky calls.
It would be much too much of a pain to us and to them to treat Linux-equipped machines differently from MS boxes, and only have pay-as-you go support when everyone else is under warranty. They'd have to clearly identify machines with factory Linux, maybe even a special set of serial numbers, to tell who gets what support. And the cultists would probably whine about a Gates-led conspiracy then, too. So they have to have Linux trained bodies to throw at the phone bank in case some script-kiddie in Iowa talks daddy into buying him a redhat box, and then promptly blows it up doing something deeply stupid. Dell doesn't care if the end-user is an idiot, they'll still sell the machine. The normal Linux idiot filter, where by the time a person can get it to work he has to know at least a little about his machine, fails when its guaranteed to work out of the box.
Once they sell more boxes - and have metrics about how few Linux users have to call for Dell help - the margin will drop. Simple as that. The first people to buy will get charged more to pay to offset the risk Dell is taking, to add the staff before they sell the machines. As selling factory-installed redhat becomes part of normal business, and the folks needed become part of the normal staffing requirements, the cost difference will probably lean toward Linux' favor.
But you can still blame Bill Gates if you want, far be it from me to take away what little joy some of you get from life.
Easy Access = Its the Door Stupid
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Cooler Cases
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· Score: 1
There have been lots of cases with special doors for easy access. My favorite case design was for some old NEC P-60 and -66 midtowers. They had a plate in the base to get to the expansion slots, just one screw. You could just take off one side panel to get to the CPU and memory, and you only had to pull the other panel off if you wanted to monkey with the drives. I loved those cases, which of course meant that the next version required complete disassembly to upgrade memory.
Of course, I love some of the HP server cases too. They're great to play with, if only because they have enough room to crawl inside and still have space for a comfy chair.
Apple does neat stuff with their cases, but I hate the way they try to avoid good old fashioned screws and bolts. I know that a screw will work, and I will always remember how to get it open in a panic situation. Those crafty snaps and latches the Mac-boys love either break on their own, or get bashed by me when I need to get the hard drive out and I can't remember the secret knock that makes the case disassemble itself.
Slashdot Mirror
And what, pray tell, was actually gained by that tragic lack of discipline and style? Oh, yeah, you showed him! I'll bet he'll be appropriately meek and approving of Linux all the rest of his days. (Oh, sorry, GNU/Linux. Don't hit.)
Thugs.
What will actually happen when the children pull out their little code pop-guns and fire away at grownups is that everyone will see that they are children. The guy who made a mistake will act like a real person and own up to it, and the wee tykes launching smurf attacks will rant and attempt to defend their actions. And all the rest of the grownups will make a quick connection: Linux = freaks. Thanks awfully. I like Linux, and admire what the community is trying to do. But I truly hope this doesn't mean I have to be on your side. The enemy of my enemy may still be a childish prick.
If you're going to attack using computers over something like this, at least have the decency to do it well. Write your own tools. Check your spelling. The zealots here weren't just out of line, they were tacky and graceless. C'mon, forging only *part* of your email and personal info on a mailbomb attack? Pay attention! How tough would it have been to just plug in a random loop through the most popular firstnames over at babynames.com? If a group I'm a member of has to be labelled as a bunch of rude bastards, I'd prefer that we were at least rude bastards with style. You can't defend your OS with a display of poor computing skills.
I'm not complaining about the enthusiasm. The choice to break the law or act irresponsibly is between you and whatever God will have you. But at least show enough pride to make it worth it.
-reemul
Don't worry, RMS will just insist that everyone in the press refer to it as the GNU/Gates building.
Sure, they'd arrest all of you. So? You were going to plead not guilty after posting your intentions here? Maybe they don't have the jail space for all of you. So they'll have to settle for probation, community service (you like picking up trash, right?), and some gi-normous fine with your wages garnished until you die. You get to be part of a batch justice process. A large joint trial for you and your hundred closest, with a template sentence. Followed by the next group, and the next, in lots as big as the courtroom will hold. And it'll still be a felony conviction, so no voting, no guns, good luck getting a job to pay that whopping fine. Your terms of probation will probably include the old-standby "no using a computer" for the next three years, good luck staying current and marketable. And I'm sure your probation officer will be a caring, understanding, people-person, who won't declare you in violation for quitting that miserable job you got right after your conviction when your old gig tossed you. You did know that probabtion officers get to control your life right up until the absolute last day of your time? You'll miss those friends, but associating with anyone else who got nailed at the same time is a violation of your probation.
If tons of folks are convicted, you won't all get to hit the speaker circuit. No big advance cash from the book. No TV time to espouse your cause. No "hey, I *wrote* this cool thing." Nope, you'll just be some copycat anarchist wannbe with delusions of adequacy.
Yup, yup, sign me up.
That's not even sheep behavior, you've moved on to lemming. Congrats.
-reemul
who actually prefers that the criminally silly declare themselves in such a way, it makes them easier to spot
Not necessarily. Unless the interface is completely different from anything I've ever seen before and so non-intuitive that I can't navigate (which is a major problem anyway) there are enormous test possibilities possible without knowing anything about the code. There really is a science to testing, and its applicable no matter what the app is supposed to do. One of the better testers here used to test children's educational software, now he handles credit card data feeds. Its a matter of knowing how to test, not what is tested. Sure, deep knowledge of the code helps develop test cases, but if the end user can't tell in the interface what the result should be, the app is broken anyway.
Sure, for kernels and compilers, testing requires more knowledge of what is going on under the hood, but what percentage of applications does that represent? Fairly small. And a separate tester is still useful. Maybe a junior dev, someone not quite at the level of writing that sort of code yet, just hitting it to catch stuff that the original tester overlooked. The fact that the person knows how to code doesn't mean he isn't a tester, its the process not the person that is important.
And I *never* want to touch a compiler or kernel released without systematic testing. That's too important to hope that beta testers caught.
We don't really do bureaucracy here. At the upper levels, sure, but us cube rats just put our heads together and get the work done. Thinking that a systemic testing effort requires some Microsoft-like business model is dangerous. We do reviews, but they aren't that formal. Beer is generally involved, mostly paid for by the company. Drawing a connection between systematic testing efforts and big business is harmful:lots of folks in the Linux community are leery of such organizations and might be swayed away from professional level testing just because of such statements. I don't wear a tie, I don't even shave every day. Some of the guys don't wear shoes. Does this seem like some IBM-like blue blazer wearing company? Quite frankly, those folks don't test well. Sometimes you just need to try something weird. And sometimes the beer helps.
-reemul
90 minutes before they break out the brew
How can a rational complaint about the lack of professional level testing be considered FUD? It is simply and demonstrably true.
Based on your assertion that "software that is widely used gets plenty of testing", Office97 is the most tested code in existence. Do you believe that it is the most bug free? I don't. MS releases patches only after they have been tested by thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of pros and beta testers, and they still have problems. This isn't because the programmers at Microsoft simply aren't any good. They're just guys working on code. Its just a matter of increased complexity causing an exponential rise in bug risk. The problem with MS apps lies in the marketing pukes forcing inclusion of enormous feature lists that simply are too complex to work well together.
So the sheer number of eyes looking at an app doesn't necessarily mean that all the bugs are caught.
Your assertion that Open Source code gets more testing than commercial software is simply wrong. My most recent release was just a maintenance update to our oldest product line. In the three month product cycle, it got over 2000 hours of professional testing, just from the QA team for that release, not including all the beta testers and devs and in-house testnights where we got other departments to pitch in. Just 4 full-time testers. And this isn't in any way analogous to 2000 hours of enduser testing. This was systematic, planned testing by people intimately familiar with not only the present state of the code, but how it used to be, how it changed, and how real people use it in the real world. There wasn't any overlap or duplication of effort, no less sexy pieces skipped over. Our test plans and coverage are the results of years of updates and input. And I'm sure we still missed stuff.
Without similar professional level testing efforts, you just won't find the same bugs. You'll find all the twinkie cosmetic display problems with file:print, but you'll never find the crashing problem with printing a file over 10 mb with a name over 64 characters. You'll do wonderful with US settings, but you'll never find out that you completely mishandle Malaysian currency. (the ringgit, btw.) Until some enduser hits it. And then its too late. They'll tell their boss, and he'll decide that "it's Linux' fault, he told them they shouldn't use it for production work", and MS gets to do a smug press release.
Having lots of endusers touch an app will find lots of bugs (if the bugs are there to be found), but thats the wrong time to find them. Bugs in released code are the ones that kill an app or a company. You can't treat the world as beta testers and expect to earn respect.
And maybe I'm over-sensitive, but FUD is a trifle insulting. Its seems to indicate that I'm part of some overarching plan to whittle away at Linux' respect and viability. Personally, I believe that the community's respect in the eyes of the world is much more harmed by touchy defensive types who cry conspiracy when anyone dares offer even the most constructive criticism of not even the code, but a portion of the process. So, 'edgy', while I'm a supporter of Linux, I hope that doesn't mean I have to be on your side.
-reemul
save the whales, collect the whole set
Yes, the techie works for Microsoft. Of course he will lean that way. But that doesn't mean that absolutely everything that he says can be thrown out as clearly biased or FUD.
The point I caught was his comment on testing the code. And its something I've brought up here in the past: lots of Linux programmers, not a lot of QA. I personally work as a tester - in Redmond, no less, though not at MS - and our job is just as important to getting a usable app out the door as the devs. Software testing is an entirely different discipline from software development, but I don't see any articles about testing open source code, nothing about blackbox vs. glassbox methods; heck, we're not even an option in the polls. Pure code review doesn't find all the bugs. Period. You have to have someone willing and able to methodically and carefully test every damn part of the final app. Not the debug version, it functions differently. Not scripting against the underlying structure, or at least not only that. Actually clicking the buttons, one at a time. Putting in just bonkers stuff in all the input fields. Race conditions. Stress tests. Sure, you've got the code in front of you, but nobody does any work with source. Test the *app*.
But testing isn't cool. Testers don't get movies of the week written about them. And some testing is flat boring. (Trust me, repeating the exact same test cases in 7 different browser versions will make you start looking at the nearby water tower and remebering that it takes 42 muscles to smile, but only 4 to pull the trigger on a decent sniper rifle. Which is why I'm the lead and make somebody else do it.) But untested code, no matter how clever the programmer, isn't going to conquer the world. And devs make lousy testers. It's just a different mindset.
-reemul
MTV did this a while back, 'cracking' their own site as a publicity stunt for some character they wanted to use for something or other. OF COURSE they got caught, and they got soundly spanked in the press for a while. No, I don't remember the character's name, but neither can anyone else. I think they took their licks and crawled home never to mention it again.
Combining annoying misuse of terminology with a fake stunt will - in the end - get them stomped. Even the script-kiddies (lets face it, the target audience) will avoid them like homework. "Kipling? Those guys are LAME. No kewl d00d uses Kipling!" Heard in schoolyards around the land.
(In a just world, phrases like that would immediately be followed by automatic gunfire, but oh, well.)
Since they posted a public (and well publicized) invitation to hack their site, does this mean that its open season on kipling.com, without those nasty legal possibilities? (But Mr. Fed, they *said* it was OK!) Heh.
-reemul
Altruism is wonderful. People helping others from the sheer joy of it, without any desire for recompense or even recognition, is a glorious and precious thing.
But how does it put food on the table? If I have some wonderful idea, shouldn't I be entitled to make some money from it? Without some form of ownership of ideas, someone else can simply take my idea and use it and not give me a thin cent. I'm stuck saying "do you want fries with that?" Uncool. I wouldn't have the job I have now, because my company wouldn't exist. The software company I work at competes in a market with some very big names. We do pretty darn well because we came up with some clever ideas, and the big guys have not yet been so clever as us. If my company didn't *own* those clever ideas, the big guys could simply adopt them for their own. In the enterprise markets, customers prefer to work with the big guys, so we'd be toast. All we have is a better product. If the big guy can take what makes our product better without having to pay us, we're sunk.
And what about motivation? Capitalism works, in part, because it is dependable and predictable. If you pay people, they will tend to do what they are paid to do. Some folks will continue to do it if they aren't paid. This is great, more power to them. They drive good software development, and nearly the whole open source movement. I say nearly because a growing trend is for other companies with an interest in the market are paying programmers to contribute. (Y'know, like stuff from Red Hat Labs.) Its the same folks, they could have written the code anyway, but they didn't until they were paid to do so. Where did the money come from? Companies who got paid for their ideas. Red Hat, using GNOME as the example, has done some clever things with their distribution, and gotten some useful name recognition. However, they only make money from that name recognition because they are the only ones who get to sell that product package with that name. If just anybody could clone the disks and manuals and sell it, people will do so and the market will shift until nobody is making any more money than they could putting the cash in a savings account. Bye-bye finance for open source. The Red Hat distro becomes a commodity product, just like nails and pencils. IP is even easier to copy, as pointed out in the essay, there aren't even any real startup costs as barriers to market entry. Just need some printing equipment and a CD burner and you're off. IBM owns more software patents than anybody else, and they have used some of their money to pay for Java development. Good. But they aren't doing it because its the right thing to do, they hope that in the end they will make more money from the effort than they spent. Which is their clear, legal duty to their stockholders. So free software is funded by ownership of ideas.
Yes, ownership of ideas can hurt the community and small teams. But it is also a protection. Without any form of ownership of IP, all licensing, EVEN THE GPL, is gone. Sure, you can have anything of Microsoft's that you want, but MS can take anything they want, too. And they have more money, and more marketing. So all of RMS's programming efforts go straight into a bank account in Redmond. I doubt they'll thank him. Getting rid of ownership of ideas will change the market, maybe hurt some of the big guys, but once everything settles, it'll be a group of companies that produce everything, and *all* of the small guys will be gone. They had no protection under the law, and the only money they'd ever get for their ideas is a salary from the company who took his ideas if they decide to bring him on.
If we were starting from zero and built a society that had never had ownership of ideas, maybe it could work. But not now, not here.
Arguments can be made about the *form* of IP ownership. Patent vs. copyright, owning software vs. licensing it, all of these can be debated and legislated. But the entire concept of the ownership of ideas cannot be scrapped.
-reemul
I'm afraid I disagree with both of your ideas.
Let's start with the use of real names. There are several reasons why this is a bad idea, and only one actually decent one: accountability. Admittedly, some folks would be less likely to post offensive or just plain stupid things if their own real name was attached to it for all to see, and that is a plus. They might also be less likely to post unpopular or controversial views, and that is the biggest weakness. Other people really value their privacy a great deal, and wouldn't use their real name to post *anything* much less something juicy or passionate, and they would be a great loss, too. And some people just don't use their real names much on the net, so using it doesn't make a lot of sense anyway. I knew a guy in college who always went by his nick, doubt. I happened to know that this was derived from his real name, and even knew what it was, but nobody used it. If there was some post with his actual parent-given monniker, I'd have no idea who that guy was. But if it said 'doubt' I think, hmm, oh yeah, I know him. I use reemul on the net. I'm not trying to hide behind some pseudonym, I just like the name. Anyone who wants to track down all my real-life info is welcome to mosey on over to internic and lookup the contact info on my domain, listed above. I think it even has my phone number.
Next is cost. Your (I feel) arbitrary $29 figure might have some utility in filtering the participants in Slashdot, in the sense that it may limit users to only those who feel that Slashdot is important enough to pay the money. This would certainly have the effect of drastically diminishing the numbers of casual users, folks who only wander by from time-to-time and post rarely if at all. But is that a good thing? Perhaps a person attracted to the site by word-of-mouth or a link in some other article has something valuable to say, or is at least amusing. Why cut them off? And certainly I doubt that this would cut down on trolls and flames. If I pony up the cash, I get to say whatever I want. Killing my access means that Rob would have to give me a refund, with all the touch costs and handling fees and problems with the credit card billing company. Ugh. So we may get less folks, but perhaps less inhibited folks. And what about people for whom $29 is a hardship? The students, the struggling freelancers, the international readers on the down side of the exchange rate? I wouldn't want to lose them, either. On the other side are folks for whom $29 isn't really that much at all, who could pay it and still not really care about the site. I blow that much on my lunch break buying a book and a nice meal most every weekday, $29 doesn't indicate commitment on my part.
(And just for you conspiracy theorists, do you think that the all those Microsoft employees you suspect are posting will be deterred by a measly little $29 fee?)
So, while I understand your concerns, I don't think that your ideas are the way to go.
-reemul
Please pay attention to the recent news. No-one is getting anything other than publicity from the recent efforts to get a refund directly from Microsoft. They didn't sell you Windows. Your PC manufacturer did. It isn't nice, it isn't fair, but that's the way it is. And good luck getting a refund from them, either. The inclusion of whatever version of windows you're getting is clearly marked in the description of the PC, so by purchasing the machine, you are electing to have windows. Or at least such a case can be made. After all, you do have the option to buy a machine from someone who won't put nasty MS products all over your nice new HD.
And if you install your own OS on a PC after you get it from the manufacturer, you are on your own, warranty and support wise. That's the main difference between factory installed and roll-your-own OS. And that's what Dell is charging for.
The $99 isn't for the code, the drives are cloned and the software is free, its for support staff. If they are installing it themselves, they are committing to having it work, and supporting it through their normal channels. They have to pay for testers, to certify the few configurations they presently offer. They have to pay for devs, to tweak everything for their specific config. And they have to pay to train and staff the phone monkeys, to handle all the wacky calls.
It would be much too much of a pain to us and to them to treat Linux-equipped machines differently from MS boxes, and only have pay-as-you go support when everyone else is under warranty. They'd have to clearly identify machines with factory Linux, maybe even a special set of serial numbers, to tell who gets what support. And the cultists would probably whine about a Gates-led conspiracy then, too. So they have to have Linux trained bodies to throw at the phone bank in case some script-kiddie in Iowa talks daddy into buying him a redhat box, and then promptly blows it up doing something deeply stupid. Dell doesn't care if the end-user is an idiot, they'll still sell the machine. The normal Linux idiot filter, where by the time a person can get it to work he has to know at least a little about his machine, fails when its guaranteed to work out of the box.
Once they sell more boxes - and have metrics about how few Linux users have to call for Dell help - the margin will drop. Simple as that. The first people to buy will get charged more to pay to offset the risk Dell is taking, to add the staff before they sell the machines. As selling factory-installed redhat becomes part of normal business, and the folks needed become part of the normal staffing requirements, the cost difference will probably lean toward Linux' favor.
But you can still blame Bill Gates if you want, far be it from me to take away what little joy some of you get from life.
There have been lots of cases with special doors for easy access. My favorite case design was for some old NEC P-60 and -66 midtowers. They had a plate in the base to get to the expansion slots, just one screw. You could just take off one side panel to get to the CPU and memory, and you only had to pull the other panel off if you wanted to monkey with the drives. I loved those cases, which of course meant that the next version required complete disassembly to upgrade memory.
Of course, I love some of the HP server cases too. They're great to play with, if only because they have enough room to crawl inside and still have space for a comfy chair.
Apple does neat stuff with their cases, but I hate the way they try to avoid good old fashioned screws and bolts. I know that a screw will work, and I will always remember how to get it open in a panic situation. Those crafty snaps and latches the Mac-boys love either break on their own, or get bashed by me when I need to get the hard drive out and I can't remember the secret knock that makes the case disassemble itself.