I've been on a plane that was trying to land and someone used their cell phone. It was a very bumpy ride. The pilot came on and said "Someone was using their cell phone on that landing, if I find out who it is, they will be reported to the police."
Newer planes use shielded wires, so are not affected by the phone's signal, however older planes or planes with corroded shielding are suseptable to cell phones causing interferance - which can cause catestrophic results (immagine if the interferance was interpereted as a signal to put the flaps full up!). Its like when your cell phone rings when you're playing music, you hear the interferance through the speakers.
So if the airlines want to upgrade their fleet to be cell-phone proof, then no, its not necessary, and they could offer wireless internet on the plane. However with pretty much all airlines now taking a major economic hit after 9/11, they arent about to spend the kind of money that would be needed to upgrade their fleet, and are more likely to just ban computers.
I don't mind being charged for everything that comes down the line, as long as I can make a phone call, or log onto a website, and get something blocked at the ISP's side of the link.
I've been DOS'd before because someone wanted my nickname on IRC -- stupid reason, yes, but why should I eat that DOS, when I called my ISP and asked them to specifically block XYZ kind of traffic, and they did not have anyone with enough knowhow to do it.
If they provide a blocking facility, sure, I'll pay for it all.
Its not about each country announcing the first time IT did something. Its about a americans claim they were the first to do it *IN THE WORLD*.
I couldnt give a toss if the US said that the Wright brothers were the first to do it in the US, fine, whatever. But when they say they're the first to do it in the world, thats another story. Thats not just promoting your own countries achievements, its denying other's achievements.
Dr. Peter Jakab, a curator at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum in Washington D.C., doesn't deny that Pearse got off the ground. "But what he flew was essentially a powered glider flying into a ravine. So it wasn't a true powered flight. He's just one of many pre-Wright claimants."
What exactly does this guy consider powered flight.
According to the article, this guy flew 140 meters (as opposed to the Wright brothers 36.6 meters). He also had elements that would not appear in US aircraft for another 20 years (such as the 3-wheeled landing gear).
And I don't know about others, but I would still consider a glider an aircraft. Especially if its a prop driven craft, with single wing, decent landing gear (even if it did not get used often), and aileron steering.
I get the feeling that there has to be an american flag on the side, or at least an american pilot before it can be considered 'Powered Flight' by the Smithsonian. Yet another uncredited first buried because it was not an american that did it.
And before you call me an 'anti-american foreigner', I'm an American too, but I believe the truth is more important than patriotism. Even if its not what you want to hear.
One thing I've not seen mentioned, is code linkage. Our company backed away from GPL'd products even to the point of not even including them in the same packaging (tar.gz) as our binary code. Mainly because a case could be made, using the language in the GPL, that could suggest they are part of the same package (keeping in mind, the GPL never specifies what a 'package' is, it could be a tar.gz, a binary, etc), and we could be forced to release our source code.
There is even MORE fear when your talking about code you actually link with your own proprietary code (as opposed to just distributing a GPL'd product with yours in the same tar.gz). This definately could be the basis of a case that could end up forcing your company to release their sourc code. It could be reasonable to suggest that anything linking to GPL'd (again, excluding anything packaged with GPL'd code, including libraries that are dynamically loaded, not linked against) has basically been an extension of that GPL'd code. This would clearly mean that the source code thats is actually modified (not garbled code) would have to be released, by the GPL definition of source code.
Our company would prefer to find public domain versions of code, get our own developers to re-write it, purchase something similar, or contact the author of existing products and try and make a seconady license agreement that use GPL'd code, mainly because the language in the GPL could be used to make a case against someone even packaging GPL'd code with their product, let alone linking with it and creating a binary from it.
I would also like to say, like others here, the GPL says you must release the source code you modify, NOT a garbled version of it. This means, if you make even one character of changes to that GPL'd code, you have to have made it on POST-GARBLED code, if it can be supported that it was made on pre-garbled code, and then the code was garbled specifically for release (even if the byte code was compiled from it, its not the version your modifying to do your changes), then you've violated the GPL.
I'd check to see where your lawyer's law degree was granted:)
First, I dont know why your complaining... your getting a free service from slashdot. You could go out and trawl all the places slashdot gets submissions from yourself, daily, but I highly doubt you'd find as much interesting stuff. However, they DO need money to pay for the amount of bandwidth we all suck (remember, slashdot has the slashdot effect daily). Plus running slashdot is a full-time job for some people, so they need to be paid, so they can feed themselves and any family (that includes fiancees! dayem they get expensive).
Second, If you use mozilla (which I'm assuming most of the readership on linux does), as of 0.94 you can turn off any add that pops up without explicitely requesting it. This is mainly to stop those annoying porn sites that you accidentally (yeah, sure) click on, that pop open 3 more windows when you exit. However, it does also effectively stop pop-up and pop-under adds. I highly doubt that slashdot will start putting huge adds right in the main page. Even if they do. They already put banner adds in, just give this new form of advertising the same level of notice you gave the old ones.
Three, we all want to see the linux community (and open source community as a whole) advance, and become a united force, and topple microsoft, yadda yadda yadda. However, its only after reading stuff like this, that you're realising that while free stuff is EXCELLENT, when software or a project advances to the stage where it becomes a service, you either need to open it up completely so you get enough people willing to support this infastructure in their own time, and you can still afford to have a full-time job (something that slashdot CANT do), or you need to start getting money from some other place. Corporate sponsorship tends to mean 'corporate control', so the only other avenue is advertising.
This is actually a sensible and logical move by slashdot. As much as I dont like looking at (and dont click on) web advertising, they DO serve one essential purpose -- funding the people who maintain the sites I like to visit. So I have just become so accustomed to them that I dont notice the ads anymore. Its like TV, you just skip over them (ok, TV you take a break, make coffee or something, on the net, you just point your eyes elsewhere).
I must say, I *LIKE* all the detail in the changelog now. For a LONG time, I've thought the changelogs for linux have been too understated.
'More bug fixes for PCMCIA' or 'Patches for USB'. Doesnt really tell me if theres any hope a particular problem I am experiencing with either has been fixed -- nor does it tell me why something that used to work no longer works, and how to re-enable the 'old style' code -- or where I should look for the diff to say to the author "This used to work, since this change, it doesnt anymore... X hardware, X version, etc"
More detail means, for example, I can see from the changelog, when the USB sleep (ie. usb does not come back online automatically when you put your computer sleep, you must either do some fancy footwork beforehand (which doesnt always work), or reboot). Its a known problem, but "More USB bugfixes" doesnt tell me its fixed, or even that that part of the code has been worked on.
I'm sure theres many others out there who experience problems in specific parts of the code, (which are known problems), and have been frustrated by the changelog's lack of detail -- and dont want to upgrade your kernel to 2.5, or 2.4-pre's or even another stable 2.4, unless you know your problem is fixed, because what you got now works for everything ELSE, and you never know what a new kernel will break. I myself havnt started using 2.5 kernels, but I would probably start IF I could tell by the changelog, that my problem was solved there, so there was some benefit for me.
As soon as Linux started getting used by as many people as it is now, and started gaining momentum and more developers writing drivers, features, patches, etc -- Linux ceased having the luxury of it being just a hobby -- now he has dependants.
I agree, he deserves respect, however the linux user and open source community cant afford to just wait until Linux gets around to reviewing everything and decides to put it in at his leasure anymore. The patches, new features, and demand is too great.
Its about time Linus got some kind of source control - however I DID note that the only one who has access to it is Linux himself, which doesnt exactly make it helpful... however I'm hoping that will eventually change, and we might actually end up with a group of people 'blessed' enough to review patches and put them in (ie. the 'all-stars' you see in every changelog), and a much faster moving patch and update scheme.
What both sorcerer and gentoo both lack, is the ability to setup a 'build server'.
I have many computers running linux, from a lowly 586/133 and a P/100, up to a Dual P3/800. I would MUCH prefer to tell all my linux boxes to use my dual P3/800 as their 'build server' (ie. when I type make on the machine I'm installing in the directory of a package I want to make, it contacts the build server, transmits info about which package it wants, and more importantly, what the system specs are so it can optimize the compile, and the build server transmits back information about the compile as it happens, and a failure/success message... simple). This of course, requires the build server to run some kind of daemon to listen for such requests (and I HOPE They actually think about security up front with it!).
Its not worth it to me, to have my 586/100 compiling for a week or more, to get everything optimized for it. Heck, MOST of my machines I dont install a compiler on! they dont need one for their job.
Not to mention, if you have the concept of a build server, theres no reason you couldnt download source RPM's, and get the build server to create an optimized RPM for the system that its building for, and when done, get the taeget system to just install that RPM -- thus keeping it package based, and most importantly, easy to uninstall at will.
When you get down to it, every application, at some level, is a database of some kind. ie. it will end up storing many records of the same or similar type, usually in memory, and then go and do actions on those records. Weather each 'record' is a data packet, plugins for your application, records from some kind of file, whatever. In the end, it all acts a little like an in-memory database.
The traditional way to handle this kind of thing is with a linked-list or array of structures. The main thing OOP gives you is not any 'special' solution to old procedural programs -- infact, a good blend of procedural and OOP is always the best solution, because every program is a combination of both. However, what OOP does give you is a nice way to encapsulate all data that is relevent, instead of into a structure, into a complete package.
Instead of calling functions, and passing that object around, and then worrying about lost pointers, NULL's, etc. You take the more logical course of action, and perform the action directly ON the object. ie. instead of doing: do_something(mystruct,....) you would just do mystruct.do_something(...). Which when you think about it, is a more logical solution. Almost every function you write, except for the straight out code-flow, and accessor functions, is some kind of operation on a data record in your 'in-memory database' (however it is represented). OOP's main purpose is to more link the functions doing stuff to the data, and the data itself. Nothing more, nothing less.
Things like inheritance, templates, polymorphism, etc, are all just fluff to make coding easier, that has been added on top of the OO ideal. Granted, they make life ALOT easier (dont get me wrong, I use all of them all the time, and I'm an OO junkie), but the main purpose of OO is simply to create logical units, including code, and data in one block. So instead of having a bunch of structures, and then all functions to act on that structure in one.c file, and you know they're all related to that structure because they're in that particular.c file, you instead put all the functions in a class, and you know the funcitons work on that data, because the data, and function, are all part of the same logical unit.
So I think you've mistaken the benefit of OO. As I said before, OO is not some kind of magical wand that will solve even the most complex of computing programming problems easily... its just a cleaner way to group together data and functions that work on that data in a more 'binding' fashion, something that had to be done by the coder's memory and by hoping the previous coder's comments were good enough to make it clear what goes with what.
I made it easy for my spouse MONTHS ago... I just did some browsing on ThinkGeek, came up with over $1000 worth of stuff I wanted, and forwarded the list to her. She can now pick and choose, and eventually, that list will be empty. And I'll never have a problem with not liking a gift again! horrah for the net community!
aka. ACE. I use it personally to handle just that, multi-threading, locking, I/O, memory management, and alot more like timers, events, etc. Its got a HELL OF ALOT of stuff built into it, all of it cross platform, and most of the time, if one platform doesnt have it, they write an equivalent, or at the least, handle the fact.
You can grab it from here.
Its got a non-standard compilation method, but for anyone with half a brain, it shouldnt be too hard. And it supports all unicies and win32. They've also chosen to expose a unix style API for their OS abstraction layer, which is perfect.
As the US government now demands that a backdoor be put into this World War II relic... it WAS considered 'strong' encryption in World War II anyway...
I run GOTH.NET. Wouldnt you know it, alot of goths wear trenchcoats... these guys wore trenchcoats! they MUST be GOTH! which means of course, GOTHS ARE MURDERERS!...
I received ALOT of email and backlash over the whole columbine thing. I even got contacted by reporters -- I ended up having to post my reply on the main page to stop the tide of 'you murdered our children' comments... I still have it up to this day at http://www.goth.net/columbine.html
Its things like this that really highlight how much of our lives are controlled (not reported) by the media.
And not the US government -- but the small country next to Australia, New Zealand. Why? Because it is ILLEGAL in New Zealand to sell a region coded DVD. You really think the NZ govt is not going to do something about this?
Think about it -- to do this, anywhere that makes region coding illegal will either have to be excluded totally from DVD distribution (which a govt. doesnt want, and can sue over if they are a WTO member, which NZ is), or 'special' DVD's will have to be released for that country, at cost of course, to the MPAA.
Of course, they could make Region 4 DVD's NOT do this kind of checking, but that would defeat the purpose, wouldnt it -- people would just import DVD's from Australia or something. And god forbid if people holidaying in Australia who should happen to buy a DVD be able to play their DVD at home...
Watch this one closely -- the NZ govt may not have much pressure to push, but being such a small nation, it pulls alot of sympathy -- so others may back it for that reason alone. The world is a funny place.
Of course, NZ could sell DVD players powered by DeCSS, I'm sure the MPAA would be absolutely THRILLED about that one:)
Personally, I live outside the USA (Australia to be precise), well out of the duristiction of the NSA, or any US organisation (no carnivore going to be at MY ISP!). Which means not only is any data collected on me by the NSA invalid, but also that the NSA has no right to collect it in the first place!
I also remember a little while back there was outrage over Internet Explorer contacting not just microsoft, but the NSA before going to any secure ASP sites, which means both microsoft AND the NSA have to approve of you going to that site before it will let you get the page up. This has been used in the past to block people outside the US from getting strong encryption. What I want to know is, what on earth gives the NSA the right to say stop me downloading strong encryption from Finland -- where the source and destination are out of their control and duristiction, but the software still asks for their 'approval' first.
I believe if the NSA wants to go poking around in proprietary software, they should 1) have to have some kind of notification not only that the NSA backdoor is there, but what it enables the NSA to do (not how it works, thats up to them -- just what it allows). and 2) provide an international version WITHOUT the NSA interferance/code in there, that the software houses can export without people internationally having to contact the US government before using their software.
IMHO, the US govt is taking big brother a bit too far, especially when it concerns software or internet traffic that is being used or transmitted outside their own boarders. I for one am glad I am part of the GNU generation.
I am even currently working on a project that has to work on Windows, and various UNIX flavours, not to mention any other OS I can compile the damn thing on. I say give me linux any day.
First, the standard automake/autoconf tools make compiler options, compatability, and essentially, making the code portable under different environments a breeze, AS WELL as checking for dependancies, which MSVCPP has no way of doing until after you've started the compile process, and assuming you dont include any extra 'library includes', it wont warn you about the missing sections until the link phase, quite annoying.
Second, All the code is plane text, plane C or C++, no ombufscated visual C++ code to essentially make the code unreadable and unmaintainable. Its clear to see what it does.
Third, GCC is a hell of alot more robust than MSVCPP. Granted, i've only used 5.0, but my project has already surpassed the point where MSVCPP cant handle it anymore, and gets an internal compiler error, when borland C++ and gcc have absolutely no problems with it and compile it happily.
Fourth, UNIX C and C++ tends to be very standard, and even when they expand on standards, they usually leave the standard calls alone. MSVCPP tends to want to create their own standard, and only actually compile in a standardized fassion kicking and screaming.
Personally, I dont need a fancy IDE to do my development, its, as the programmer in question called, 'fluff, scenery', and not nessicary to program with. MFC is more trouble than its worth, and encourages bad coding styles, and the UNIX OS's are much more stable any day. As other people have mentioned, more often than not, when coding, it was the instability of the OS than the code that caused a problem. Not to mention that I can recover from my code crashing on UNIX a HELL of alot easier than windows -- can we say 'General Protection Fault'?
I personally have 8 machines, one of them a MicroSoft Windows machine. I will be the first to tell you that it was installed with a copied version of Windows 98. I DO have a valid license for Windows 98, however it is for one of these 'rescue disks' that came with my Toshiba Laptop, that will restore the system to its 'original' state. Frankly, it annoys the hell out of me.
I use Linux on my laptop, which is my right, I own the hardware, I have every right to run whatever software I damn well want on it, not just the software they supplied on, I mean, I OWN the hardware, and the CD's that were supplied with it. Nowhere in any license agreement did it say 'This software may only be installed on laptop with serial #.....', or even 'This software may only be installed on a Toshiba Laptop'.
However, because these are LAPTOP recovery CD's, they take the hardware, etc for granted, and if I'd used them to install on my windows desktop machine, I would lose the use of about 1/2 my winbox's hard disk, and would have drivers installed that I cant use. Not ONLY this, but the Rescue CD's are in a proprietary format, and stored as a single file, so if I needed EXTRA drivers, say I added something to my machine, I couldnt use the CD to install the drivers, even though I own a full license for Windows 98, so I am basically FORCED to get another copy of Windows 98 to be able to use it. I own exactly 1 license for Windows 98, and have exactly 1 machine installed with Windows 98, but if MicroSoft had their way, I would have to buy another copy if I wanted to use it on anything but my Laptop.
This is just wrong. When I buy software, I want to own it, and should. Some vendors say 'by licensing the software, you pay per use or period, however you get automatic upgrades for the duration of the license'. This I can accept, but does anyone think M$ will ship out new OS CD's to every licensed Windows user? I dont think so, they'll make you go and BUY the new version, and then get your free updates from Windows Update, which every user of the software can use. You end up asking yourself, 'Why am I still paying for this?'
These days, Liunux can do anything I want it to do, support for peripherals comes out almost as fast as microsoft (we have some VERY intelligent reverse engineers out in the market today, but of course, if the RIAA wins its case with DeCSS, then it will become illegal for them to make drivers for linux for new hardware, because they have to reverse engineer the windows drivers...)
I say point me in any direction where ther is a petition to 'stop vendors circumventing copywright by creating "licensing" agreements that would otherwise be deemed illegal if the product was sold'. Or if you like, 'Implement "lemon" laws for computer software and hardware'. Speaking of copywright laws, how does this work internationally, I mean, some of the conditions M$ puts on its products, are illegal and not upholdable in other countries -- some countries even make it illegal to attempt what M$ wants to do... but then, it wouldnt be the first time. M$ has been violating US law for years, why not international law aswell.
I have heard of this before, but mainly with co-location customers. The ISP's try and say 'you are responsible for ALL bandwidth coming TO your server from the internet, not just from', which is just wrong. We all know that 99% of traffic coming to your server you have no control of, and if someone decides to attack your server, then theres nothing you can do but contact the ISP where the attack came from, and call the relivant authority of computer crimes in your state/country. But I've heard of not just suspensions, but account terminations, which is going too far.
Personally, I would not sign any contract that basically says 'you are responsible for all bandwidth going TO you aswell as FROM you', and would sue if someone tried to remove my account or co-located box because of traffic that was totally unsolicited.
I would also like to hear how the ISP's can hold up this defence in court, they could easily claim traffic FROM you is your juristiction, because its from your system, but hell, I could ping the pentagon if I wanted, does that mean its the pentagon's fault for being pinged?
Keeping in mind of course, that most ISP's wont firewall traffic EVEN IF it is requested by the client. I mean, essentially the client is saying 'I dont want responsibility of this traffic, therefore I dont want to recieve it at all', and yet the ISP refuses to firewall it, and then have the gaul to blame the co-located box owner when they recieve traffic that they ASKED TO BE BLOCKED.
This doesnt concern me, and coule be useful, but as long as I can turn it off, or sue the relivant company for unsolicited SPAM, just like you can now over internet spamming companies.
Thats what it comes down to, they have to give you a way to turn it off, else they're gonna get sued like nothing else, it wont take long, either.
You would seriously think they would have better uses for GPS, eg. finding someone with a mobile phone who is lost in the woods, rather than having a 'general' idea and launching a seach & rescue team. But then, that would be useful, and not give the coporate giants money, now wouldnt it.
You would really be surprised at a kids capacity to pick up complex processes... They did a study a few years back, where they started primary school kids (age 5 - 12) doing senior highschool mathematical problems, and they picked it up, and they became proficiant at it. Not all kids can do this, but children have a MUCH greater learning capacity than they're given credit for, you just have to be able to keep their interest -- ie. give them a project to do, thats THEIRS and THEIRS ALONE. I say DO teach them on *nix C, standard C, get them to learn it and then move to *nix C++, once they can program in those, they'll have such an advantage over every uni graduate you wouldnt believe. I learned C under DOS when I was 15, and I always, even back then, was hearing about these genius 12-13 y/o programmers, and wish I'd been interoduced to it years before. I have since moved to *nix, and wish I'd gone to IT before aswell. I say give your kids every advantage they can have by introducing them to *nix C at a young age -- they WILL be able to pick it up, dont worry about that, children could learn an entire forign language ASWELL as their own before the age of 5, they have no problems with that. They will probably thank you for introducing them to C at that age when they get into the workforce. They'll probably also end up being my boss:)
Slashdot Mirror
I've been on a plane that was trying to land and someone used their cell phone. It was a very bumpy ride. The pilot came on and said "Someone was using their cell phone on that landing, if I find out who it is, they will be reported to the police."
Newer planes use shielded wires, so are not affected by the phone's signal, however older planes or planes with corroded shielding are suseptable to cell phones causing interferance - which can cause catestrophic results (immagine if the interferance was interpereted as a signal to put the flaps full up!). Its like when your cell phone rings when you're playing music, you hear the interferance through the speakers.
So if the airlines want to upgrade their fleet to be cell-phone proof, then no, its not necessary, and they could offer wireless internet on the plane. However with pretty much all airlines now taking a major economic hit after 9/11, they arent about to spend the kind of money that would be needed to upgrade their fleet, and are more likely to just ban computers.
I have delt with this situation before.
I don't mind being charged for everything that comes down the line, as long as I can make a phone call, or log onto a website, and get something blocked at the ISP's side of the link.
I've been DOS'd before because someone wanted my nickname on IRC -- stupid reason, yes, but why should I eat that DOS, when I called my ISP and asked them to specifically block XYZ kind of traffic, and they did not have anyone with enough knowhow to do it.
If they provide a blocking facility, sure, I'll pay for it all.
You didn't really read the article very well, did you.
For the action figures to be classified as dolls, they must first be classified as 'human' (or more correctly, representations of human characters).
Only by classifying them as non-human can they then be classified as toys instead of dolls, and get the tax benefit of this classification.
So the crutial issues IS indeed whether they're humans or not, because by law, thats what then classifies them as dolls or toys.
Its not about each country announcing the first time IT did something. Its about a americans claim they were the first to do it *IN THE WORLD*.
I couldnt give a toss if the US said that the Wright brothers were the first to do it in the US, fine, whatever. But when they say they're the first to do it in the world, thats another story. Thats not just promoting your own countries achievements, its denying other's achievements.
Dr. Peter Jakab, a curator at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum in Washington D.C., doesn't deny that Pearse got off the ground. "But what he flew was essentially a powered glider flying into a ravine. So it wasn't a true powered flight. He's just one of many pre-Wright claimants."
What exactly does this guy consider powered flight.
According to the article, this guy flew 140 meters (as opposed to the Wright brothers 36.6 meters). He also had elements that would not appear in US aircraft for another 20 years (such as the 3-wheeled landing gear).
And I don't know about others, but I would still consider a glider an aircraft. Especially if its a prop driven craft, with single wing, decent landing gear (even if it did not get used often), and aileron steering.
I get the feeling that there has to be an american flag on the side, or at least an american pilot before it can be considered 'Powered Flight' by the Smithsonian. Yet another uncredited first buried because it was not an american that did it.
And before you call me an 'anti-american foreigner', I'm an American too, but I believe the truth is more important than patriotism. Even if its not what you want to hear.
One thing I've not seen mentioned, is code linkage. Our company backed away from GPL'd products even to the point of not even including them in the same packaging (tar.gz) as our binary code. Mainly because a case could be made, using the language in the GPL, that could suggest they are part of the same package (keeping in mind, the GPL never specifies what a 'package' is, it could be a tar.gz, a binary, etc), and we could be forced to release our source code.
:)
There is even MORE fear when your talking about code you actually link with your own proprietary code (as opposed to just distributing a GPL'd product with yours in the same tar.gz). This definately could be the basis of a case that could end up forcing your company to release their sourc code. It could be reasonable to suggest that anything linking to GPL'd (again, excluding anything packaged with GPL'd code, including libraries that are dynamically loaded, not linked against) has basically been an extension of that GPL'd code. This would clearly mean that the source code thats is actually modified (not garbled code) would have to be released, by the GPL definition of source code.
Our company would prefer to find public domain versions of code, get our own developers to re-write it, purchase something similar, or contact the author of existing products and try and make a seconady license agreement that use GPL'd code, mainly because the language in the GPL could be used to make a case against someone even packaging GPL'd code with their product, let alone linking with it and creating a binary from it.
I would also like to say, like others here, the GPL says you must release the source code you modify, NOT a garbled version of it. This means, if you make even one character of changes to that GPL'd code, you have to have made it on POST-GARBLED code, if it can be supported that it was made on pre-garbled code, and then the code was garbled specifically for release (even if the byte code was compiled from it, its not the version your modifying to do your changes), then you've violated the GPL.
I'd check to see where your lawyer's law degree was granted
First, I dont know why your complaining ... your getting a free service from slashdot. You could go out and trawl all the places slashdot gets submissions from yourself, daily, but I highly doubt you'd find as much interesting stuff. However, they DO need money to pay for the amount of bandwidth we all suck (remember, slashdot has the slashdot effect daily). Plus running slashdot is a full-time job for some people, so they need to be paid, so they can feed themselves and any family (that includes fiancees! dayem they get expensive).
Second, If you use mozilla (which I'm assuming most of the readership on linux does), as of 0.94 you can turn off any add that pops up without explicitely requesting it. This is mainly to stop those annoying porn sites that you accidentally (yeah, sure) click on, that pop open 3 more windows when you exit. However, it does also effectively stop pop-up and pop-under adds. I highly doubt that slashdot will start putting huge adds right in the main page. Even if they do. They already put banner adds in, just give this new form of advertising the same level of notice you gave the old ones.
Three, we all want to see the linux community (and open source community as a whole) advance, and become a united force, and topple microsoft, yadda yadda yadda. However, its only after reading stuff like this, that you're realising that while free stuff is EXCELLENT, when software or a project advances to the stage where it becomes a service, you either need to open it up completely so you get enough people willing to support this infastructure in their own time, and you can still afford to have a full-time job (something that slashdot CANT do), or you need to start getting money from some other place. Corporate sponsorship tends to mean 'corporate control', so the only other avenue is advertising.
This is actually a sensible and logical move by slashdot. As much as I dont like looking at (and dont click on) web advertising, they DO serve one essential purpose -- funding the people who maintain the sites I like to visit. So I have just become so accustomed to them that I dont notice the ads anymore. Its like TV, you just skip over them (ok, TV you take a break, make coffee or something, on the net, you just point your eyes elsewhere).
Thats my $0.02.
Duh!
I must say, I *LIKE* all the detail in the changelog now. For a LONG time, I've thought the changelogs for linux have been too understated.
... X hardware, X version, etc"
'More bug fixes for PCMCIA' or 'Patches for USB'. Doesnt really tell me if theres any hope a particular problem I am experiencing with either has been fixed -- nor does it tell me why something that used to work no longer works, and how to re-enable the 'old style' code -- or where I should look for the diff to say to the author "This used to work, since this change, it doesnt anymore
More detail means, for example, I can see from the changelog, when the USB sleep (ie. usb does not come back online automatically when you put your computer sleep, you must either do some fancy footwork beforehand (which doesnt always work), or reboot). Its a known problem, but "More USB bugfixes" doesnt tell me its fixed, or even that that part of the code has been worked on.
I'm sure theres many others out there who experience problems in specific parts of the code, (which are known problems), and have been frustrated by the changelog's lack of detail -- and dont want to upgrade your kernel to 2.5, or 2.4-pre's or even another stable 2.4, unless you know your problem is fixed, because what you got now works for everything ELSE, and you never know what a new kernel will break. I myself havnt started using 2.5 kernels, but I would probably start IF I could tell by the changelog, that my problem was solved there, so there was some benefit for me.
Before anyone decides to flame, scrap that 'linux is only one who has access' comment, I was looking at the wrong branch of code.
As soon as Linux started getting used by as many people as it is now, and started gaining momentum and more developers writing drivers, features, patches, etc -- Linux ceased having the luxury of it being just a hobby -- now he has dependants.
... however I'm hoping that will eventually change, and we might actually end up with a group of people 'blessed' enough to review patches and put them in (ie. the 'all-stars' you see in every changelog), and a much faster moving patch and update scheme.
...
I agree, he deserves respect, however the linux user and open source community cant afford to just wait until Linux gets around to reviewing everything and decides to put it in at his leasure anymore. The patches, new features, and demand is too great.
Its about time Linus got some kind of source control - however I DID note that the only one who has access to it is Linux himself, which doesnt exactly make it helpful
Heres hoping
What both sorcerer and gentoo both lack, is the ability to setup a 'build server'.
I have many computers running linux, from a lowly 586/133 and a P/100, up to a Dual P3/800. I would MUCH prefer to tell all my linux boxes to use my dual P3/800 as their 'build server' (ie. when I type make on the machine I'm installing in the directory of a package I want to make, it contacts the build server, transmits info about which package it wants, and more importantly, what the system specs are so it can optimize the compile, and the build server transmits back information about the compile as it happens, and a failure/success message... simple). This of course, requires the build server to run some kind of daemon to listen for such requests (and I HOPE They actually think about security up front with it!).
Its not worth it to me, to have my 586/100 compiling for a week or more, to get everything optimized for it. Heck, MOST of my machines I dont install a compiler on! they dont need one for their job.
Not to mention, if you have the concept of a build server, theres no reason you couldnt download source RPM's, and get the build server to create an optimized RPM for the system that its building for, and when done, get the taeget system to just install that RPM -- thus keeping it package based, and most importantly, easy to uninstall at will.
When you get down to it, every application, at some level, is a database of some kind. ie. it will end up storing many records of the same or similar type, usually in memory, and then go and do actions on those records. Weather each 'record' is a data packet, plugins for your application, records from some kind of file, whatever. In the end, it all acts a little like an in-memory database.
....) you would just do mystruct.do_something(...). Which when you think about it, is a more logical solution. Almost every function you write, except for the straight out code-flow, and accessor functions, is some kind of operation on a data record in your 'in-memory database' (however it is represented). OOP's main purpose is to more link the functions doing stuff to the data, and the data itself. Nothing more, nothing less.
.c file, and you know they're all related to that structure because they're in that particular .c file, you instead put all the functions in a class, and you know the funcitons work on that data, because the data, and function, are all part of the same logical unit.
... its just a cleaner way to group together data and functions that work on that data in a more 'binding' fashion, something that had to be done by the coder's memory and by hoping the previous coder's comments were good enough to make it clear what goes with what.
The traditional way to handle this kind of thing is with a linked-list or array of structures. The main thing OOP gives you is not any 'special' solution to old procedural programs -- infact, a good blend of procedural and OOP is always the best solution, because every program is a combination of both. However, what OOP does give you is a nice way to encapsulate all data that is relevent, instead of into a structure, into a complete package.
Instead of calling functions, and passing that object around, and then worrying about lost pointers, NULL's, etc. You take the more logical course of action, and perform the action directly ON the object. ie. instead of doing: do_something(mystruct,
Things like inheritance, templates, polymorphism, etc, are all just fluff to make coding easier, that has been added on top of the OO ideal. Granted, they make life ALOT easier (dont get me wrong, I use all of them all the time, and I'm an OO junkie), but the main purpose of OO is simply to create logical units, including code, and data in one block. So instead of having a bunch of structures, and then all functions to act on that structure in one
So I think you've mistaken the benefit of OO. As I said before, OO is not some kind of magical wand that will solve even the most complex of computing programming problems easily
I made it easy for my spouse MONTHS ago ... I just did some browsing on ThinkGeek, came up with over $1000 worth of stuff I wanted, and forwarded the list to her. She can now pick and choose, and eventually, that list will be empty. And I'll never have a problem with not liking a gift again! horrah for the net community!
You can grab it from here. Its got a non-standard compilation method, but for anyone with half a brain, it shouldnt be too hard. And it supports all unicies and win32. They've also chosen to expose a unix style API for their OS abstraction layer, which is perfect.
Hope it helps.
As the US government now demands that a backdoor be put into this World War II relic ... it WAS considered 'strong' encryption in World War II anyway ...
I run GOTH.NET. Wouldnt you know it, alot of goths wear trenchcoats ... these guys wore trenchcoats! they MUST be GOTH! which means of course, GOTHS ARE MURDERERS! ...
... I still have it up to this day at http://www.goth.net/columbine.html
I received ALOT of email and backlash over the whole columbine thing. I even got contacted by reporters -- I ended up having to post my reply on the main page to stop the tide of 'you murdered our children' comments
Its things like this that really highlight how much of our lives are controlled (not reported) by the media.
Can we say new PCMCIA laptop battery?
Linux drivers anyone?
And not the US government -- but the small country next to Australia, New Zealand. Why? Because it is ILLEGAL in New Zealand to sell a region coded DVD. You really think the NZ govt is not going to do something about this?
...
:)
Think about it -- to do this, anywhere that makes region coding illegal will either have to be excluded totally from DVD distribution (which a govt. doesnt want, and can sue over if they are a WTO member, which NZ is), or 'special' DVD's will have to be released for that country, at cost of course, to the MPAA.
Of course, they could make Region 4 DVD's NOT do this kind of checking, but that would defeat the purpose, wouldnt it -- people would just import DVD's from Australia or something. And god forbid if people holidaying in Australia who should happen to buy a DVD be able to play their DVD at home
Watch this one closely -- the NZ govt may not have much pressure to push, but being such a small nation, it pulls alot of sympathy -- so others may back it for that reason alone. The world is a funny place.
Of course, NZ could sell DVD players powered by DeCSS, I'm sure the MPAA would be absolutely THRILLED about that one
Personally, I live outside the USA (Australia to be precise), well out of the duristiction of the NSA, or any US organisation (no carnivore going to be at MY ISP!). Which means not only is any data collected on me by the NSA invalid, but also that the NSA has no right to collect it in the first place!
I also remember a little while back there was outrage over Internet Explorer contacting not just microsoft, but the NSA before going to any secure ASP sites, which means both microsoft AND the NSA have to approve of you going to that site before it will let you get the page up. This has been used in the past to block people outside the US from getting strong encryption. What I want to know is, what on earth gives the NSA the right to say stop me downloading strong encryption from Finland -- where the source and destination are out of their control and duristiction, but the software still asks for their 'approval' first.
I believe if the NSA wants to go poking around in proprietary software, they should 1) have to have some kind of notification not only that the NSA backdoor is there, but what it enables the NSA to do (not how it works, thats up to them -- just what it allows). and 2) provide an international version WITHOUT the NSA interferance/code in there, that the software houses can export without people internationally having to contact the US government before using their software.
IMHO, the US govt is taking big brother a bit too far, especially when it concerns software or internet traffic that is being used or transmitted outside their own boarders. I for one am glad I am part of the GNU generation.
I am even currently working on a project that has to work on Windows, and various UNIX flavours, not to mention any other OS I can compile the damn thing on. I say give me linux any day.
First, the standard automake/autoconf tools make compiler options, compatability, and essentially, making the code portable under different environments a breeze, AS WELL as checking for dependancies, which MSVCPP has no way of doing until after you've started the compile process, and assuming you dont include any extra 'library includes', it wont warn you about the missing sections until the link phase, quite annoying.
Second, All the code is plane text, plane C or C++, no ombufscated visual C++ code to essentially make the code unreadable and unmaintainable. Its clear to see what it does.
Third, GCC is a hell of alot more robust than MSVCPP. Granted, i've only used 5.0, but my project has already surpassed the point where MSVCPP cant handle it anymore, and gets an internal compiler error, when borland C++ and gcc have absolutely no problems with it and compile it happily.
Fourth, UNIX C and C++ tends to be very standard, and even when they expand on standards, they usually leave the standard calls alone. MSVCPP tends to want to create their own standard, and only actually compile in a standardized fassion kicking and screaming.
Personally, I dont need a fancy IDE to do my development, its, as the programmer in question called, 'fluff, scenery', and not nessicary to program with. MFC is more trouble than its worth, and encourages bad coding styles, and the UNIX OS's are much more stable any day. As other people have mentioned, more often than not, when coding, it was the instability of the OS than the code that caused a problem. Not to mention that I can recover from my code crashing on UNIX a HELL of alot easier than windows -- can we say 'General Protection Fault'?
I personally have 8 machines, one of them a MicroSoft Windows machine. I will be the first to tell you that it was installed with a copied version of Windows 98. I DO have a valid license for Windows 98, however it is for one of these 'rescue disks' that came with my Toshiba Laptop, that will restore the system to its 'original' state. Frankly, it annoys the hell out of me.
... but then, it wouldnt be the first time. M$ has been violating US law for years, why not international law aswell.
I use Linux on my laptop, which is my right, I own the hardware, I have every right to run whatever software I damn well want on it, not just the software they supplied on, I mean, I OWN the hardware, and the CD's that were supplied with it. Nowhere in any license agreement did it say 'This software may only be installed on laptop with serial #.....', or even 'This software may only be installed on a Toshiba Laptop'.
However, because these are LAPTOP recovery CD's, they take the hardware, etc for granted, and if I'd used them to install on my windows desktop machine, I would lose the use of about 1/2 my winbox's hard disk, and would have drivers installed that I cant use. Not ONLY this, but the Rescue CD's are in a proprietary format, and stored as a single file, so if I needed EXTRA drivers, say I added something to my machine, I couldnt use the CD to install the drivers, even though I own a full license for Windows 98, so I am basically FORCED to get another copy of Windows 98 to be able to use it. I own exactly 1 license for Windows 98, and have exactly 1 machine installed with Windows 98, but if MicroSoft had their way, I would have to buy another copy if I wanted to use it on anything but my Laptop.
This is just wrong. When I buy software, I want to own it, and should. Some vendors say 'by licensing the software, you pay per use or period, however you get automatic upgrades for the duration of the license'. This I can accept, but does anyone think M$ will ship out new OS CD's to every licensed Windows user? I dont think so, they'll make you go and BUY the new version, and then get your free updates from Windows Update, which every user of the software can use. You end up asking yourself, 'Why am I still paying for this?'
These days, Liunux can do anything I want it to do, support for peripherals comes out almost as fast as microsoft (we have some VERY intelligent reverse engineers out in the market today, but of course, if the RIAA wins its case with DeCSS, then it will become illegal for them to make drivers for linux for new hardware, because they have to reverse engineer the windows drivers...)
I say point me in any direction where ther is a petition to 'stop vendors circumventing copywright by creating "licensing" agreements that would otherwise be deemed illegal if the product was sold'. Or if you like, 'Implement "lemon" laws for computer software and hardware'.
Speaking of copywright laws, how does this work internationally, I mean, some of the conditions M$ puts on its products, are illegal and not upholdable in other countries -- some countries even make it illegal to attempt what M$ wants to do
I have heard of this before, but mainly with co-location customers. The ISP's try and say 'you are responsible for ALL bandwidth coming TO your server from the internet, not just from', which is just wrong. We all know that 99% of traffic coming to your server you have no control of, and if someone decides to attack your server, then theres nothing you can do but contact the ISP where the attack came from, and call the relivant authority of computer crimes in your state/country. But I've heard of not just suspensions, but account terminations, which is going too far.
Personally, I would not sign any contract that basically says 'you are responsible for all bandwidth going TO you aswell as FROM you', and would sue if someone tried to remove my account or co-located box because of traffic that was totally unsolicited.
I would also like to hear how the ISP's can hold up this defence in court, they could easily claim traffic FROM you is your juristiction, because its from your system, but hell, I could ping the pentagon if I wanted, does that mean its the pentagon's fault for being pinged?
Keeping in mind of course, that most ISP's wont firewall traffic EVEN IF it is requested by the client. I mean, essentially the client is saying 'I dont want responsibility of this traffic, therefore I dont want to recieve it at all', and yet the ISP refuses to firewall it, and then have the gaul to blame the co-located box owner when they recieve traffic that they ASKED TO BE BLOCKED.
The ISP industry has alot to answer for.
This doesnt concern me, and coule be useful, but as long as I can turn it off, or sue the relivant company for unsolicited SPAM, just like you can now over internet spamming companies.
Thats what it comes down to, they have to give you a way to turn it off, else they're gonna get sued like nothing else, it wont take long, either.
You would seriously think they would have better uses for GPS, eg. finding someone with a mobile phone who is lost in the woods, rather than having a 'general' idea and launching a seach & rescue team. But then, that would be useful, and not give the coporate giants money, now wouldnt it.
You would really be surprised at a kids capacity to pick up complex processes ... They did a study a few years back, where they started primary school kids (age 5 - 12) doing senior highschool mathematical problems, and they picked it up, and they became proficiant at it. Not all kids can do this, but children have a MUCH greater learning capacity than they're given credit for, you just have to be able to keep their interest -- ie. give them a project to do, thats THEIRS and THEIRS ALONE. I say DO teach them on *nix C, standard C, get them to learn it and then move to *nix C++, once they can program in those, they'll have such an advantage over every uni graduate you wouldnt believe. I learned C under DOS when I was 15, and I always, even back then, was hearing about these genius 12-13 y/o programmers, and wish I'd been interoduced to it years before. I have since moved to *nix, and wish I'd gone to IT before aswell. I say give your kids every advantage they can have by introducing them to *nix C at a young age -- they WILL be able to pick it up, dont worry about that, children could learn an entire forign language ASWELL as their own before the age of 5, they have no problems with that. They will probably thank you for introducing them to C at that age when they get into the workforce. They'll probably also end up being my boss :)