Ok, let me get this clear: You're now agreeing with me that it's not "pure speculation" as you said in your previous comment. Shame, I was hoping you'd stake something more than your reputation. You really should have a go at not contradicting yourself every few minutes, or not:-)
What's the DRM like at these "DRM shops" you were talking about? Perhaps you don't know because you don't live in the US or in Europe but the six largest most successful publishers in the US and Europe are all seeking technical ways to protect their publications more stringently than they have ever done before. The trend is definitely to remove fair-use rights from consumers who don't yet understand the implications. Consumers have no choice about which DRM exists in the mass market because given the choice, they'd choose NO DRM!
On second reading, I think you've actually slightly misunderstood my overly long 4th sentence above. I don't -- and didn't -- disagree with you that uncopyability of the TCPA keys is vital to DRM. What I meant was that making the TCPA keys copyable would meet some objections to TCPA such as the inability to access legally purchased music and video archives using future hardware/software that is different from the particular TCPA system used at the time of purchase. Open architecture + open keys => software emulation => permanent access to legally purchased music and video archives => karma.
I think most truly independent observers who are not TCPA cronies and who have studied TCPA have come to the same conclusion: the one application of TCPA which will proceed with absolute certainty is DRM enforcement.
How much would you be prepared to stake against TCPA being used for DRM enforcement on consumer electronic devices including PCs and home entertainment consoles? You'd be a fool to stake much. The differences between unmoveable content and uncopyable content are unknown to most of the world's population -- heck, most don't even have a electricity!
TCPA will be used as an enabling technology by publishers to lock-down every publication, locking publications to a particular item of TCPA-hardware without any possibility of transfer, locking publications to a particular expiry date without regard to the lawful expiration of copyrights and fair expansion of the public domain, locking publications to a particular person without regard to fair dealing as recognised in law. Of course TCPA doesn't have to be used for DRM enforcement but no commercial publisher would want to use it any other way because it would be less profitable.
In TCPA "hell", people will not be allowed complete freedom to choose which software to use, to change their software to non-approved third-party software of their choice (because a secure bootstrap process will load both a DRM-secure OS and DRM-secure applications) as you claim. They will only be allowed to use locked-down lock-out-enabled publications and software. TCPA is to be totally avoided because in the long-term it will hurt ordinary people using home computers and other TCPA-hardware. The only gainers are the publishing and hardware industries -- not surprisingly they're the ones pushing TCPA.
Yes, I've read your group's papers - of solid academic interest. Yes, I believe as do most truly independent observers outside TCPA that TCPA will be used to enforce DRM and in its current for that's going to hurt ordinary people using home computers. Ordinary people can be educated about the true long-term out-of-pocket costs and threats posed by TCPA. No, I didn't say or even assume DRM enforcement is the only valid use of TCPA but unless TCPA is modified to guarantee the endorsement key(s) can always be copied by the current owner of any TCPA hardware, then DRM is the single most important issue with TCPA and the best reason to reject it totally.
What is interesting and not very surprising is that the public supporters of TCPA such as yourself, never try to give a convincing rebuttals for all of the strong arguments against TCPA. That "Score:-3 Mis-informative" you mentioned is actually for you.
You cannot copy the keys inside TCPA hardware. I'll explain what this means (if you don't like reading about technicalities, just skip to the final paragraph)
Every time you buy a new PC with TCPA you will not be able to copy the old TCPA keys on your old PC to your new PC. This means you will completely lose access to your videos and your music which you legally purchased and used on your old PC. Effectively you have to
buy another set of keys to regain access to your videos and your music collections.
TCPA and other DRM technologies are being pushed by the publishing industry and hardware manufacturers like IBM who want to sell more of their hardware equipped with DRM to make it attractive to commercial content locked-down publications.
TCPA means LOCK-down, LOCK-out, LOCK-up enabler. Avoid getting anything with TCPA.
I don't know what agenda you have but you are not discussing TCPA logically or fairly.
In common English, if something is said to be yours it is implied you have a degree of control over the object itself. The private keys in hardware TCPA are not allowed to be copied by anyone, even the owner of the hardware. It doesn't matter who or what originally created the public/private key pairs in TCPA hardware. The simple fact is nobody can copy the private keys, even if you desperately want to copy them for valid reasons, for example, when you want to copy the private keys to your new computer so as to be able to continue to enjoy your music/video collections which you purchased for your old computer.
If I cannot copy "my" private keys wherever I "damn well please", to borrow your cute little phrase, then they are not "my" private keys at all. Call a spade, a spade: The private keys belong to the TCPA hardware; they are not my keys unless I can copy them wherever and whenever I want.
I get all the computational capability I need from the CPU. What does TCPA have to offer? Oh yes, a miserly Scrooge-like hardware encryption scheme which disallows me from copying the private keys and is ideal for implementing lock-out, lock-down, lock-up restrictions I don't want on my properly purchased data and hardware.
The supposed "advantage" of the private keys in TCPA hardware not being copyable is a disadvantage. If your system is vulnerable to intruders, fix your system -- then nobody without authority can copy your private keys. TCPA denies me the choice of copying my private keys.
Forget hardware TCPA. Put the effort into designing secure software systems that intruders cannot break into. For a secure software system, nobody can copy your private keys except you unless you allow someone else to do so (your partner?). This means you, not the hardware, gets to choose how to manage your private keys. That flexibility is useful. Give people the freedom to choose the software they prefer. Don't force the same hardware TCPA onto everyone's motherboard where it might stand a chance of becoming Scrooge's toolbox for content suppliers. When suppliers start locking the things you buy to a particular public/private key pair on a particular TCPA-CPU/device, people are going to regret having bought anything with TCPA.
No, TCPA is not "good thing" unless you like having hardware you cannot fully use.
If you read the white papers and the counter-rebuttal you may not see the most important point about TCPA: TCPA means you're not allowed to copy the keys inside your own PC!
The real irony is that proponents of TCPA are mis-describing the private keys in TCPA hardware as "your" keys. Yet, despite what they say, it turns out the keys in TCPA hardware are not "your" keys at all. When you talk about "somebody's keys" you should mean their personal keys which they use to identify themselves,e.g., to sign their email, to login, etc.
The keys TCPA proponents are talking about are the keys inside and belonging to the TCPA-enabled PC, settop box, or other electronic device. These keys are used to control functions specific to that particular piece of hardware. This is a lock-down enabling restriction on what you can and cannot do with your PCs, electronic equipment, etc.
If the keys in TCPA hardware were really "your" keys, you could copy them whenever you like and take them with you to whichever device you happened to be sitting in front of. But you couldn't do that with TCPA because you're not allowed to. TCPA means parts of your PC can get locked down absolutely and permanently.
With TCPA you may buy music and videos for your PC/home stereo, but if you buy a new PC/stereo you will not be able to use your old collection anymore on the new equipment.
With TCPA you are no longer free to upgrade your PC when you like, how you like. You lose your existing privileges.
In a nutshell TCPA really does mean lockdown-enabler. Avoid getting anything with TCPA.
You cannot copy the keys inside TCPA hardware. I'll explain what this means (if you don't like reading about technicalities, just skip to the final paragraph)
Every time you buy a new PC with TCPA you will not be able to copy the old TCPA keys on your old PC to your new PC. This means you will completely lose access to your videos and your music which you legally purchased and used on your old PC. Effectively you have to buy another set of keys to regain access to your videos and your music collections.
TCPA means LOCK-down, LOCK-out, LOCK-up enabler. Avoid getting anything with TCPA.
Excuse me, Metamathica. Did you read anything in any of the white papers or the counter-rebuttal which indicated that you are able to copy the private keys inside TCPA-hardware? Of course not because TCPA means you're not allowed to copy the keys inside your own PC!
The real irony is that proponents of TCPA are mis-describing the private keys in TCPA hardware as "your" keys. Yet, despite what they say, it turns out the keys in TCPA hardware are not "your" keys at all. When you talk about "somebody's keys" you should mean their personal keys which they use to identify themselves,e.g., to sign their email, to login, etc.
The keys TCPA proponents are talking about are the keys inside and belonging to the TCPA-enabled PC, settop box, or other electronic device. These keys are used to control functions specific to that particular piece of hardware.
If the keys in TCPA hardware were really "your" keys, you could copy them whenever you like and take them with you to whichever device you happened to be sitting in front of. But you couldn't do that with TCPA because you're not allowed to. TCPA means parts of your PC can get locked down absolutely and permanently.
With TCPA you are no longer free to upgrade your PC when you like, how you like. You lose your existing privileges.
In a nutshell TCPA really does mean lockdown-enabler.
"it's primarily about protecting a user's private keys...",
The keys in TCPA hardware are not "your" keys at all. When you talk about "somebody's keys" you should mean their personal keys which they use to identify themselves,e.g., to sign their email, to login, etc.
The keys you are talking about are the keys inside and belonging to the TCPA-enabled PC, settop box, or other electronic device. These keys are used to control functions specific to that particular piece of hardware.
If the keys in TCPA hardware were really "your" keys, you could copy them whenever you like and take them with you to whichever device you happened to be sitting in front of. But you couldn't do that with TCPA because you're not allowed to. TCPA means parts of your PC can get locked down permanently.
With TCPA you are no longer free to upgrade your PC when you like, how you like. You lose your existing privileges.
"It is really about helping to protect you against blah-blah-blah obtaining your private keys"
The keys in TCPA hardware are not "your" keys at all. When you talk about "somebody's keys" you mean their personal keys which they use to identify themselves,e.g., to sign their email, to login, etc.
The keys you are talking about are the keys inside and belonging to the TCPA-enabled PC, settop box, or other electronic device. These keys are used to control functions specific to that particular piece of hardware.
If the keys in TCPA hardware were really "your" keys, you could copy them whenever you like and take them with you to whichever device you happened to be sitting in front of. But you couldn't do that with TCPA because you're not allowed to.
Hardware TCPA is NOT "ok" unless it is possible for anyone to install software that emulates, completely, every function of hardware-TCPA in such a way that it is impossible for any application (e.g. a media player) to know whether the environment is a software emulated-TCPA or a hardware-TCPA.
If there is some way an application can reliably detect it is running on software-emulated-TCPA, then it becomes possible to have a "locked-down" restricted PC, e.g. a PC where certain software cannot be modified to perform new functions. Applications would be able to refuse to run outside of the predetermined hardware-TCPA environment.
From other people's comments it sounds like Marcelo is too overloaded even to deal with all the bug fixes he receives by email, let alone the bug reports. He silently drops fixes as well as bug reports, so my point is he should delegate some of his heavy workload, such as dealing with email, to the many other qualified people who have offered to help as maintainers of 2.4.x kernels. For some reason he hasn't accepted any of those offers of help.
LKML is a very high traffic mailing list. I'm wary of adding to that flood of email. However, due to the lack of response from Marcelo I will probably email LKML.
Ok, I sympathise with his daily email overload but maybe he should delegate some of his workw
, like dealing with kernel email? There are many other qualified people who have offered to help with maintaining 2.4.x kernels. That would be better than silently dropping email. Maintaining a relatively common Linux kernel series like 2.4.x is such an important job we should not have to rely on one overloaded person -- that's an unnecessary bottleneck. This is not a criticism of Marcelo's quality of work, which I think is very high. I am suggesting that he should delegate at least the work of dealing with kernel email.
Documenting the VM is a good idea. I hope it is accepted into the/Documentation directory in 2.4.x kernel tarballs but I'm not sure whether you'd get a reply from the maintainer, Marcelo Tosatti. I sent him a carefully written email in August 2002 documenting an invalid config in 2.4.19 which causes the build process to fail. It was disappointing he never responded and apparently did not fix the bug which is still present in 2.4.20 and more recent patches.
Folks love to comment how ugly they think GUIs look under X in Netscape/Mozilla, and the same folks often suggest the solution is to use anti-aliased fonts. Sure, anti-aliased fonts are good.
However, I'd like to share my experience with a very simple alternative method of getting really great looking fonts in X without installing or changing any software.
Change your X11 display resolution so pixels are about the same size as the dot pitch of your monitor. For a dot pitch of 0.25mm, the ideal resolution may be 1600x1200.
The jagged edges of the unaliased X fonts totally disappear. Quasi font anti-aliasing is as good as true anti-aliased fonts but without the hassle! If I had my macro lens handy I'd take a photo of my monitor screen running 1600x1200 and show you the incredibly smooth font outlines I've got with this very ordinary variable width Times Roman 18pt font in Netscape. Using this method I've got perfect results on every CRT display I've tested including cheap Iiyama CRT displays like 19" (USD$150), 17" (USD$120) and 15" (USD$90) monitors. If I reduce X to a resolution much less than 1600x1200 like 1024x768, of course, the jagged edges return.
This is a really
superb Chinese ideograph tutor (also quite good for learning the Japanese kanji which are mostly identical to Chinese) with bilingual English-Chinese translations based on radicals.
I'm not talking about the difference between employees and contractors. I'm only explaining what the guy, "tenman", said not very clearly in his first two posts at the top of this thread. What has emerged from his subsequent comments is that he seems to have a term in his contracts which says his contractors must work a minimum number of hours per day at a particular location. Like I explained in my other posts he is using an archaic fixed-time, fixed-workplace, fixed-deliverable contract instead of a modern fixed-price, fixed-deliverable contract.
I'd bet you if you changed to use "time-less" contracts, you'd get higher productivity from your contractors for the same pay. Your company's lawyer should be able to write a really watertight time-less contract.
On the other hand, maybe you're a bear not a bull in the contract stakes, and would rather run away from trying any new contracts.
a really superb Chinese ideograph tutor (also quite good for learning the Japanese kanji which are mostly identical to Chinese) with bilingual English-Chinese translations based on radicals.
"This is my point exactly! except I went a step further.
No, Soulfader(527299)'s point is not your point at all because you went a great leap further than the fixed-price, fixed-deliverable contract example he quoted. You deny your contractors the motivation to finish their work early that would otherwise exist if you rewarded them with proportionate time off-work, bonus pay, or even better, if you didn't specify their hours of work at all, i.e., used "time-less" fixed-price, fixed-deliverable contracts. Instead, you are using good old-fashioned fixed-time, fixed-workplace, fixed-deliverable contracts.
Slashdot Mirror
"Of course it will be used for DRM enforcement."
Ok, let me get this clear: You're now agreeing with me that it's not "pure speculation" as you said in your previous comment. Shame, I was hoping you'd stake something more than your reputation. You really should have a go at not contradicting yourself every few minutes, or not :-)
What's the DRM like at these "DRM shops" you were talking about? Perhaps you don't know because you don't live in the US or in Europe but the six largest most successful publishers in the US and Europe are all seeking technical ways to protect their publications more stringently than they have ever done before. The trend is definitely to remove fair-use rights from consumers who don't yet understand the implications. Consumers have no choice about which DRM exists in the mass market because given the choice, they'd choose NO DRM!
On second reading, I think you've actually slightly misunderstood my overly long 4th sentence above. I don't -- and didn't -- disagree with you that uncopyability of the TCPA keys is vital to DRM. What I meant was that making the TCPA keys copyable would meet some objections to TCPA such as the inability to access legally purchased music and video archives using future hardware/software that is different from the particular TCPA system used at the time of purchase. Open architecture + open keys => software emulation => permanent access to legally purchased music and video archives => karma.
There are other reasons but it's not possible for me to discuss them here.
I think most truly independent observers who are not TCPA cronies and who have studied TCPA have come to the same conclusion: the one application of TCPA which will proceed with absolute certainty is DRM enforcement.
How much would you be prepared to stake against TCPA being used for DRM enforcement on consumer electronic devices including PCs and home entertainment consoles? You'd be a fool to stake much. The differences between unmoveable content and uncopyable content are unknown to most of the world's population -- heck, most don't even have a electricity!
TCPA will be used as an enabling technology by publishers to lock-down every publication, locking publications to a particular item of TCPA-hardware without any possibility of transfer, locking publications to a particular expiry date without regard to the lawful expiration of copyrights and fair expansion of the public domain, locking publications to a particular person without regard to fair dealing as recognised in law. Of course TCPA doesn't have to be used for DRM enforcement but no commercial publisher would want to use it any other way because it would be less profitable.
In TCPA "hell", people will not be allowed complete freedom to choose which software to use, to change their software to non-approved third-party software of their choice (because a secure bootstrap process will load both a DRM-secure OS and DRM-secure applications) as you claim. They will only be allowed to use locked-down lock-out-enabled publications and software. TCPA is to be totally avoided because in the long-term it will hurt ordinary people using home computers and other TCPA-hardware. The only gainers are the publishing and hardware industries -- not surprisingly they're the ones pushing TCPA.
Yes, I've read your group's papers - of solid academic interest. Yes, I believe as do most truly independent observers outside TCPA that TCPA will be used to enforce DRM and in its current for that's going to hurt ordinary people using home computers. Ordinary people can be educated about the true long-term out-of-pocket costs and threats posed by TCPA. No, I didn't say or even assume DRM enforcement is the only valid use of TCPA but unless TCPA is modified to guarantee the endorsement key(s) can always be copied by the current owner of any TCPA hardware , then DRM is the single most important issue with TCPA and the best reason to reject it totally.
What is interesting and not very surprising is that the public supporters of TCPA such as yourself, never try to give a convincing rebuttals for all of the strong arguments against TCPA. That "Score:-3 Mis-informative" you mentioned is actually for you.
You cannot copy the keys inside TCPA hardware. I'll explain what this means (if you don't like reading about technicalities, just skip to the final paragraph)
Every time you buy a new PC with TCPA you will not be able to copy the old TCPA keys on your old PC to your new PC. This means you will completely lose access to your videos and your music which you legally purchased and used on your old PC. Effectively you have to buy another set of keys to regain access to your videos and your music collections.
TCPA and other DRM technologies are being pushed by the publishing industry and hardware manufacturers like IBM who want to sell more of their hardware equipped with DRM to make it attractive to commercial content locked-down publications.
TCPA means LOCK-down, LOCK-out, LOCK-up enabler. Avoid getting anything with TCPA.
I don't know what agenda you have but you are not discussing TCPA logically or fairly.
In common English, if something is said to be yours it is implied you have a degree of control over the object itself. The private keys in hardware TCPA are not allowed to be copied by anyone, even the owner of the hardware. It doesn't matter who or what originally created the public/private key pairs in TCPA hardware. The simple fact is nobody can copy the private keys, even if you desperately want to copy them for valid reasons, for example, when you want to copy the private keys to your new computer so as to be able to continue to enjoy your music/video collections which you purchased for your old computer.
If I cannot copy "my" private keys wherever I "damn well please", to borrow your cute little phrase, then they are not "my" private keys at all. Call a spade, a spade: The private keys belong to the TCPA hardware; they are not my keys unless I can copy them wherever and whenever I want.
I get all the computational capability I need from the CPU. What does TCPA have to offer? Oh yes, a miserly Scrooge-like hardware encryption scheme which disallows me from copying the private keys and is ideal for implementing lock-out, lock-down, lock-up restrictions I don't want on my properly purchased data and hardware.
The supposed "advantage" of the private keys in TCPA hardware not being copyable is a disadvantage. If your system is vulnerable to intruders, fix your system -- then nobody without authority can copy your private keys. TCPA denies me the choice of copying my private keys.
Forget hardware TCPA. Put the effort into designing secure software systems that intruders cannot break into. For a secure software system, nobody can copy your private keys except you unless you allow someone else to do so (your partner?). This means you, not the hardware, gets to choose how to manage your private keys. That flexibility is useful. Give people the freedom to choose the software they prefer. Don't force the same hardware TCPA onto everyone's motherboard where it might stand a chance of becoming Scrooge's toolbox for content suppliers. When suppliers start locking the things you buy to a particular public/private key pair on a particular TCPA-CPU/device, people are going to regret having bought anything with TCPA.
Avoid getting anything with TCPA.
No, TCPA is not "good thing" unless you like having hardware you cannot fully use.
If you read the white papers and the counter-rebuttal you may not see the most important point about TCPA: TCPA means you're not allowed to copy the keys inside your own PC!
The real irony is that proponents of TCPA are mis-describing the private keys in TCPA hardware as "your" keys. Yet, despite what they say, it turns out the keys in TCPA hardware are not "your" keys at all. When you talk about "somebody's keys" you should mean their personal keys which they use to identify themselves, e.g., to sign their email, to login, etc.
The keys TCPA proponents are talking about are the keys inside and belonging to the TCPA-enabled PC, settop box, or other electronic device. These keys are used to control functions specific to that particular piece of hardware. This is a lock-down enabling restriction on what you can and cannot do with your PCs, electronic equipment, etc.
If the keys in TCPA hardware were really "your" keys, you could copy them whenever you like and take them with you to whichever device you happened to be sitting in front of. But you couldn't do that with TCPA because you're not allowed to. TCPA means parts of your PC can get locked down absolutely and permanently.
In a nutshell TCPA really does mean lockdown-enabler. Avoid getting anything with TCPA.
You cannot copy the keys inside TCPA hardware. I'll explain what this means (if you don't like reading about technicalities, just skip to the final paragraph)
Every time you buy a new PC with TCPA you will not be able to copy the old TCPA keys on your old PC to your new PC. This means you will completely lose access to your videos and your music which you legally purchased and used on your old PC. Effectively you have to buy another set of keys to regain access to your videos and your music collections.
TCPA means LOCK-down, LOCK-out, LOCK-up enabler. Avoid getting anything with TCPA.
The real irony is that proponents of TCPA are mis-describing the private keys in TCPA hardware as "your" keys. Yet, despite what they say, it turns out the keys in TCPA hardware are not "your" keys at all. When you talk about "somebody's keys" you should mean their personal keys which they use to identify themselves, e.g., to sign their email, to login, etc.
The keys TCPA proponents are talking about are the keys inside and belonging to the TCPA-enabled PC, settop box, or other electronic device. These keys are used to control functions specific to that particular piece of hardware.
If the keys in TCPA hardware were really "your" keys, you could copy them whenever you like and take them with you to whichever device you happened to be sitting in front of. But you couldn't do that with TCPA because you're not allowed to. TCPA means parts of your PC can get locked down absolutely and permanently.
With TCPA you are no longer free to upgrade your PC when you like, how you like. You lose your existing privileges.
In a nutshell TCPA really does mean lockdown-enabler.
The keys in TCPA hardware are not "your" keys at all. When you talk about "somebody's keys" you should mean their personal keys which they use to identify themselves, e.g., to sign their email, to login, etc.
The keys you are talking about are the keys inside and belonging to the TCPA-enabled PC, settop box, or other electronic device. These keys are used to control functions specific to that particular piece of hardware.
If the keys in TCPA hardware were really "your" keys, you could copy them whenever you like and take them with you to whichever device you happened to be sitting in front of. But you couldn't do that with TCPA because you're not allowed to. TCPA means parts of your PC can get locked down permanently.
With TCPA you are no longer free to upgrade your PC when you like, how you like. You lose your existing privileges.
TCPA really means lockdown enabler.
But why would I _want_ a motherboard with hardware TCPA? I don't want one because I get all the computational capabilities I need from my main CPU.
The keys in TCPA hardware are not "your" keys at all. When you talk about "somebody's keys" you mean their personal keys which they use to identify themselves, e.g., to sign their email, to login, etc.
The keys you are talking about are the keys inside and belonging to the TCPA-enabled PC, settop box, or other electronic device. These keys are used to control functions specific to that particular piece of hardware.
If the keys in TCPA hardware were really "your" keys, you could copy them whenever you like and take them with you to whichever device you happened to be sitting in front of. But you couldn't do that with TCPA because you're not allowed to.
TCPA really means lockdown enabler.
- Hardware TCPA is NOT "ok" unless it is possible for anyone to install software that emulates, completely, every function of hardware-TCPA in such a way that it is impossible for any application (e.g. a media player) to know whether the environment is a software emulated-TCPA or a hardware-TCPA.
If there is some way an application can reliably detect it is running on software-emulated-TCPA, then it becomes possible to have a "locked-down" restricted PC, e.g. a PC where certain software cannot be modified to perform new functions. Applications would be able to refuse to run outside of the predetermined hardware-TCPA environment.From other people's comments it sounds like Marcelo is too overloaded even to deal with all the bug fixes he receives by email, let alone the bug reports. He silently drops fixes as well as bug reports, so my point is he should delegate some of his heavy workload, such as dealing with email, to the many other qualified people who have offered to help as maintainers of 2.4.x kernels. For some reason he hasn't accepted any of those offers of help.
LKML is a very high traffic mailing list. I'm wary of adding to that flood of email. However, due to the lack of response from Marcelo I will probably email LKML.
Ok, I sympathise with his daily email overload but maybe he should delegate some of his workw , like dealing with kernel email? There are many other qualified people who have offered to help with maintaining 2.4.x kernels. That would be better than silently dropping email. Maintaining a relatively common Linux kernel series like 2.4.x is such an important job we should not have to rely on one overloaded person -- that's an unnecessary bottleneck. This is not a criticism of Marcelo's quality of work, which I think is very high. I am suggesting that he should delegate at least the work of dealing with kernel email.
Documenting the VM is a good idea. I hope it is accepted into the /Documentation directory in 2.4.x kernel tarballs but I'm not sure whether you'd get a reply from the maintainer, Marcelo Tosatti. I sent him a carefully written email in August 2002 documenting an invalid config in 2.4.19 which causes the build process to fail. It was disappointing he never responded and apparently did not fix the bug which is still present in 2.4.20 and more recent patches.
Folks love to comment how ugly they think GUIs look under X in Netscape/Mozilla, and the same folks often suggest the solution is to use anti-aliased fonts. Sure, anti-aliased fonts are good.
However, I'd like to share my experience with a very simple alternative method of getting really great looking fonts in X without installing or changing any software.
- Change your X11 display resolution so pixels are about the same size as the dot pitch of your monitor. For a dot pitch of 0.25mm, the ideal resolution may be 1600x1200.
The jagged edges of the unaliased X fonts totally disappear. Quasi font anti-aliasing is as good as true anti-aliased fonts but without the hassle! If I had my macro lens handy I'd take a photo of my monitor screen running 1600x1200 and show you the incredibly smooth font outlines I've got with this very ordinary variable width Times Roman 18pt font in Netscape. Using this method I've got perfect results on every CRT display I've tested including cheap Iiyama CRT displays like 19" (USD$150), 17" (USD$120) and 15" (USD$90) monitors. If I reduce X to a resolution much less than 1600x1200 like 1024x768, of course, the jagged edges return.The best open-source software I've seen for teaching the basics of Japanese writing are:
Hanzim - Score: Excellent
Kanatest - Score: Very Good
The calligraphy is very good too.
1. The first rule of Slashdot is: Never feed trolls!
2. The second rule of Slashdot is: Never feed trolls!
3. IANAT (who's kidding whom?!).
Happy New Year!
I'm not talking about the difference between employees and contractors. I'm only explaining what the guy, "tenman", said not very clearly in his first two posts at the top of this thread. What has emerged from his subsequent comments is that he seems to have a term in his contracts which says his contractors must work a minimum number of hours per day at a particular location. Like I explained in my other posts he is using an archaic fixed-time, fixed-workplace, fixed-deliverable contract instead of a modern fixed-price, fixed-deliverable contract.
I'd bet you if you changed to use "time-less" contracts, you'd get higher productivity from your contractors for the same pay. Your company's lawyer should be able to write a really watertight time-less contract.
On the other hand, maybe you're a bear not a bull in the contract stakes, and would rather run away from trying any new contracts.
Hanzim - Score: Excellent
Kanatest - Score: Very Good
No, Soulfader(527299)'s point is not your point at all because you went a great leap further than the fixed-price, fixed-deliverable contract example he quoted. You deny your contractors the motivation to finish their work early that would otherwise exist if you rewarded them with proportionate time off-work, bonus pay, or even better, if you didn't specify their hours of work at all, i.e., used "time-less" fixed-price, fixed-deliverable contracts. Instead, you are using good old-fashioned fixed-time, fixed-workplace, fixed-deliverable contracts.