??Huh?? What the hell are "my kind"... are you referring to people who choose to license their code under the GPL?
I don't think I've ever asked anyone to use my code. Ever. If you take it and refuse to honor my terms you are a thief. Regardless of what rationalizations you create.
Get a grip, man. If your tiny venomous mind could comprehend what I wrote, you'd notice I don't particularly care how Stallman, Raymond, and deRaadt define freedom.
IMHO that's a good thing if that crap breaks. They're fragmenting the DNS root heirarchy and making it chaos. If you gave me a URL of "http://baby.mart" and I tried to go there (which I did) and it doesn't resolve then I'm going to think you're a daft moron. Use the ICANN root and everything works fine.
Yeah, only terrorists want to fragment the DNS root hierarchy. And drug pushers. Don't listen to the thousands of people successfully using alternate roots as well as the ICANN roots, they are communists who only want bad things like free software and world peace.
If you post a link to a site I'm too stupid to be able to resolve, it's terrorism. You should be prosecuted for being such a daft moron, since I can't use my proprietary monopolist software to view information made freely available to anyone with a clue. It's bad, and those people who are providing services to the world for free are bad, and we need a government-funded crusade to stop them right away, ICANN shouldn't have to spend their own money to protect themselves from all this blatant terrorism.
--Captain Swing
This announcement sponsored by Lludites for a Tax Cut, Inc.
/.
Nice trolling, Matt. And I mean that honestly; I think there is a difference between provoking conversation and, well, you know, the typical slashdot troll.
Anyway, I don't know about the rest of the world, but I am not real concerned about the relative "freedom" of licenses. I simply do not want people to steal my work without compensation. For me, sufficient compensation is that the person who benefits from my work releases their enhancements or modifications back to me. Is this so much to ask? That's what the GPL is about for a great many of the people who use it... simply an attempt at fair value exchange.
If somebody else objects to this, they are *free* to NOT USE MY WORK.
As far as "freedom" is concerned - well, if anyone can figure out how to get any I'd like to have some too.
Paul Komarek wrote:
"I don't at all understand why you write "an RMS autocracy." RMS is not a dictator."
Yeah, but he's also an easy target for parody. Re-read the two comments parenting mine, then read mine again... and remember, you're the one who accused Andrew Moore of subverting humanity.
Because it's part of the GNU (or was) Gee, here and I thought GNU was about freedom, not an RMS autocracy? Silly me. I guess it was that attempt to clone Unix that distracted me...
Seriously, folks. RMS gets blindsided in a Q&A and makes the best of the situation "Uh, I hope what you are saying is not true, if it is, I'd like Miguel to explain rather than listen to your hearsay". Yawn Yawn, wait for the 11:00 roundup.
/.
Funny, my Ximian Gnome installation unzips files with no problem. I'm not aware of having done anything special with it, but it handles zip, bzip2, gzip, and tarred gzip - the last three MSwindows doesn't, of course. Are you sure your problem is not in your choice of installation options? I find the default installation of Windows, for example, to be lacking things I use constantly - so I do the "custom install" just like I do on any other OS.
As for "user friendliness", well, I've never seen a user friendly graphical environment - they all restrict the user and cause physical distress to the body. How exactly is "mouser's elbow" to be considered "friendly"? Not that carpal tunnel is any improvement... chord keyboards mounted on the sides of the seat might be worth trying.
Also, I'm curious as to why you think Ximian is any better than any other X environment... Ximian is primarily a laudable but unfinished attempt to co-opt the MSwindows "look and feel".
Not really, Red Hat ships with SEVERAL databases, none of which are proprietary products of Red Hat. The comparison is hardly apropos.
So are Oracle's lawyers knocking on RH's doors?
Not so far as I've heard; Ellison probably figures the enemy of his enemy is his friend.
--Charlie
Logical absurdities in kernel discussion
on
Linus Does Not Scale
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
./
In many of the posts (yes I read the whole thread) people state things like this:
"I perceive this to be true. Any objections? Now, since we've agreed this is a global constraint, here is a consequence of the aformentioned thing that I believe to be obvious and thus not requiring any objective support"
Then the other kernel hackers argue about the conclusions (which are typically quite logical) rather than the premises.
Here's an example from Linus:
Basic premise: development is done by humans.
Now, look at how humans work. I don't know _anybody_ who works with hundreds of people. You work with 5-10 people, out of a pool of maybe 30-50 people. Agreed?
Now, I personally have worked with well over a hundred people, and I know that there are other humans who can do it (granted, it's a somewhat rare ability - like programming or musical talent). But nobody bothers to point out that Linus is committing the fundamental logical fallacy of ascribing his own attributes to all other humans.
More from the same post:
What I'm saying is
- I'm never going to work with hundreds of people directly, because it is fundamentally against my nature, by virtue of being human.
- adding a "patch penguin" doesn't help, because _he_ (or she, although I didn't see any women nominated) is also going to be human.
and again:
Those are obvious truths. If you don't see them as being obvious truths, you just haven't been thinking things through.
Linus, I have tremendous respect for you (and I still regret the conversation we had at LinuxWorld that I'm sure you don't remember) but I think that these "obvious truths" are not obvious at all, and that more "thinking things through" may be required on your part. You do not have the same social or organizational abilities as all other humans.
Alan is one of the very few people on the LKML (as far as I can see) with the balls to say that important stuff is being dropped because the authors don't have name-recognition with Linus. Ingo has that name-recognition, so his patches get respect, and consequently he finds ways to excuse the (mis)handling of others' patches. Sorry, Ingo, but that's what I see.
/.
Your batteries also produce waste chemicals as they generate electricity to run your devices. Where do those chemicals go? Think about it.
The DMFC technology doesn't need cooling to the degree that other laptop parts do - in fact Li-Ion batteries might get hotter than a DMFC cell, according to the inventors.
I wonder why the article doesn't talk about traditional recharging from a wall outlet? As I understand it, DMFC is an outgrowth of PEM technology, and generic PEM cells can be "run backwards" to recreate their fuel mix - much like a traditional battery, but with the additional requirement of avoiding carbon poisoning of the membrane.
/.
Good points, proving that the technology won't be for everyone until the local chemist shop (drugstore or druggist to us Norte Americanos) starts carrying methanol cartridges.
But hey, not everybody can get inkjet packs either - yet inkjets are still eminently marketable.
At 33 cents a gallon USD, vendors can easily put a 1000% markup on the refill cartridges. That prospect should quickly take care of the infrastructure problem in capitalist markets! Eventually, you might see business-class hotels keeping methanol on hand in the same way they stock coffee and toothpaste.
--Charlie
/.
I know it's a good idea to completely block the Comcast management subnet addresses (look at your firewall and see who is hitting NNTP every hour - that's them.
BUT: there are tools available that can partially see through many firewalls - for example nmap can gather some info through freesco (not enough to do any harm, but enough to positively ID the system).
Does anyone know what tools and techniques Comcast will be using, or what addresses they will source from?
I'm not looking for speculation - why help them out after all - just any hard info anyone might happen to have.
Thanx!
--Charlie
/.
As you say, by itself egress filtering will not solve the DoS problem.
What it does is prevent most forms of IP source address spoofing.
When the source of a (D)DoS is known, the problem is half solved. The other half is action on the part of ISP to actually cut off customers who abuse other netizens.
Egress filtering is an Internet "Best Current Practice" according to the RFCs. Performance considerations are a red herring thrown up by ISPs who want an excuse to continue doing shoddy work; any link can be egress filtered with current technology in a properly architected WAN.
But obviously, if they can't be bothered to conform to Internet BCP RFCs, they are unlikely to take action against net abusers either - until somebody makes them, perhaps?
Another thought: if clueless nimda/trinoo/tribe/stahldracht zombies were unceremoniously kicked off the net, Microsoft would suddenly have to get a lot more proactive with security issues.
/.
Back in the day, before the Internet went commercial, if you abused your connection your upstream provider (typically a bunch of long-hairs at a land-grant university) would cut you off. If they didn't do it, their upstream provider would cut them off.
Currently, there is no real penalty for large ISPs who do not implement egress filtering (which prevents IP source spoofing) and/or refuse to co-operate in tracking down DOS sources.
The anti-spam vigilantes have been partially effective in cutting off ISP service to the worst spammers; perhaps something similar is needed to influence the ISPs who refuse to implement egress filters.
/.
Given the philosophy expounded in "Under the Radar" and other Red Hat sources, it's very interesting that AOL wants them.
Remember, Red Hat is about establishing "brand loyalty" in a commodity market - the idea is that the name should inspire user trust, the users should believe they can count on the Red Hat label to mean a solid, dependable level of quality.
This is the opposite of the "BUY ME NOW I HAVE MORE FEATURES I'M REALLY COOL" marketing approach that has historically led to massive bloat without timely bug-fixes.
Now, if Red Hat has succeeded in this, AOL can pick them up and Joe Consumer will continue to buy the product until he has been thoroughly abused by the new owners, however long that takes.
If Red Hat has *not* built true brand loyalty, the legions of Red Hat consumers will immediately switch distros to whatever new company employs Marc Ewing, Alan Cox and the gang (call it "Blue Hat" or whatever).
Or, maybe linux users are beyond all that and the Red Hat marketing engine is just as out of touch as any other software company?
--Charlie
/.
These thingies are too small to be able to affect their own positions much. A raindrop falling nearby, a rock thrown by an errant child, current abberations, the flip of a fishes' tail; anything like that would move the nanite so far out of position it might take hours to recover. It's going to have a very teensy little propellor after all, and you can't count on water being entirely still in the real world.
If you use so many of them that you affect (even slightly) the transparency of the water, you've got another pollution problem...
--Charlie
/.
The article specified weak radio signals as the method of inter-nodal communication, but propagation of radio frequencies through water that isn't nano-pure really sucks.
Sonar seems more feasible, particularly in salt water where radio doesn't work worth a damn. Of course then you'd have to worry about noise pollution... hey, wait, even if the radio signals work you are going to be really messing with electrically sensitive organisms (electric eels being the obvious example, but they aren't the only ones).
--Charlie
/.
If you look at Philips' history in regards to audio tape cassettes (which are based on Nazi technology, like most magnetic recording)I think you will find that they recognize the obvious benefits of unrestricted recording hardware.
Hey, doesn't Philips own several content providers? Polygram for one?
--Charlie
/.
If you are only interested in fast-twitch games, why did you use such a trollish subject line? You might have made a point, but instead you just look like a fool to people who know that strategy games like the wonderful FREECIV are plenty stable - more so than many non-linux games.
--Charlie
I can't think about the implications of this right now, I'm supposed to be re-engineering software systems but I'm just about to win my Solitaire game.
--Charlie
Re:Linus flees [pppd bug details]
on
Linux 2001 Timeline
·
· Score: 2, Informative
/.
The problem, specifically, is in the patches that Red Hat added to Paul Makerras' code base. I had a working configuration that was in regular use for Win98 and MacOS dial-ins running under 6.22, and that same configuration completely failed to work under 7.2. Once I installed the source.RPM and recompiled without the patches the same configuration worked fine, and I now have it in use on the test box.
This is a known problem that was reported to Red Hat's Bugzilla box as bug #55367 and apparently the patch that causes it was obtained from Dell (see Bugzilla #15738). The comments all refer to windows, but I know for a fact that it also affects pre-OSX macs, and I'd guess most DOS dialups as well.
From your comments I'd guess this doesn't affect dial-out, which is somewhat interesting. You haven't seen an update from Red Hat because there isn't one, they have not addressed the problem yet.
--Charlie
"But if you need to produce a document, spreadsheet or presentation, you're still likely to be able to do it faster and better by sticking with the Microsoft devil you know."
As usual, the argument is "anything that applies to me applies to everyone else - I am a pundit, hear me roar" when you reduce it. Personally, I don't know how to make documents, spreadsheets or presentations with currently shipping MS products. Neither does anyone in my immediate family - although my spouse does know how to use StarOffice and doesn't spend any inordinate amount of time doing so.
Realistically, anyone can make a document faster using DR-DOS and Professional Write than using MSOffice and MSwindows on the same hardware. That's simply the cold hard truth, go do the experiment and see for yourself. The DOS box would be more stable, faster, and cheaper too!
But people are marketed into believing that they need additional features, and buy into bloat. I've always suspected it'd be faster and more efficient, in the long run, for people to learn how to spell than to learn how to use spell checkers.
This is proof positive that MicroSoft make quality products.
Naah, it's proof positive you're a blockhead. Microsoft isn't even in the article. And Sun has security just as lame as M$oft, as any bugtraq subscriber is well aware.
The main difference between Sun's approach to security and M$oft's is that Sun will publish a patch for a vulnerability even if there is no published exploit. MSoft must have their hand forced as evidenced by L0phtCrack and friends.
Why am I answering a troll anyway? OK, I'll go soak my head now.
--Charlie
Slashdot Mirror
OK, you're deranged, but that was actually pretty funny.
??Huh?? What the hell are "my kind"... are you referring to people who choose to license their code under the GPL?
I don't think I've ever asked anyone to use my code. Ever. If you take it and refuse to honor my terms you are a thief. Regardless of what rationalizations you create.
Get a grip, man. If your tiny venomous mind could comprehend what I wrote, you'd notice I don't particularly care how Stallman, Raymond, and deRaadt define freedom.
--Charlie
If you post a link to a site I'm too stupid to be able to resolve, it's terrorism. You should be prosecuted for being such a daft moron, since I can't use my proprietary monopolist software to view information made freely available to anyone with a clue. It's bad, and those people who are providing services to the world for free are bad, and we need a government-funded crusade to stop them right away, ICANN shouldn't have to spend their own money to protect themselves from all this blatant terrorism.
--Captain Swing
This announcement sponsored by Lludites for a Tax Cut, Inc.
I'm not aware of any "legitimate and important uses" that have been made "impossible" by the GPL or LGPL.
--Charlie
/.
Nice trolling, Matt. And I mean that honestly; I think there is a difference between provoking conversation and, well, you know, the typical slashdot troll.
Anyway, I don't know about the rest of the world, but I am not real concerned about the relative "freedom" of licenses. I simply do not want people to steal my work without compensation. For me, sufficient compensation is that the person who benefits from my work releases their enhancements or modifications back to me. Is this so much to ask? That's what the GPL is about for a great many of the people who use it... simply an attempt at fair value exchange.
If somebody else objects to this, they are *free* to NOT USE MY WORK.
As far as "freedom" is concerned - well, if anyone can figure out how to get any I'd like to have some too.
--Charlie
Paul Komarek wrote:
"I don't at all understand why you write "an RMS autocracy." RMS is not a dictator."
Yeah, but he's also an easy target for parody. Re-read the two comments parenting mine, then read mine again... and remember, you're the one who accused Andrew Moore of subverting humanity.
--Charlie
/.
Funny, my Ximian Gnome installation unzips files with no problem. I'm not aware of having done anything special with it, but it handles zip, bzip2, gzip, and tarred gzip - the last three MSwindows doesn't, of course. Are you sure your problem is not in your choice of installation options? I find the default installation of Windows, for example, to be lacking things I use constantly - so I do the "custom install" just like I do on any other OS.
As for "user friendliness", well, I've never seen a user friendly graphical environment - they all restrict the user and cause physical distress to the body. How exactly is "mouser's elbow" to be considered "friendly"? Not that carpal tunnel is any improvement... chord keyboards mounted on the sides of the seat might be worth trying.
Also, I'm curious as to why you think Ximian is any better than any other X environment... Ximian is primarily a laudable but unfinished attempt to co-opt the MSwindows "look and feel".
--Charlie
PS: Miguel rules.
--C
Not so far as I've heard; Ellison probably figures the enemy of his enemy is his friend.
--Charlie
In many of the posts (yes I read the whole thread) people state things like this:
"I perceive this to be true. Any objections? Now, since we've agreed this is a global constraint, here is a consequence of the aformentioned thing that I believe to be obvious and thus not requiring any objective support"
Then the other kernel hackers argue about the conclusions (which are typically quite logical) rather than the premises.
Here's an example from Linus: Now, I personally have worked with well over a hundred people, and I know that there are other humans who can do it (granted, it's a somewhat rare ability - like programming or musical talent). But nobody bothers to point out that Linus is committing the fundamental logical fallacy of ascribing his own attributes to all other humans.
More from the same post:and again:
Linus, I have tremendous respect for you (and I still regret the conversation we had at LinuxWorld that I'm sure you don't remember) but I think that these "obvious truths" are not obvious at all, and that more "thinking things through" may be required on your part. You do not have the same social or organizational abilities as all other humans.
Alan is one of the very few people on the LKML (as far as I can see) with the balls to say that important stuff is being dropped because the authors don't have name-recognition with Linus. Ingo has that name-recognition, so his patches get respect, and consequently he finds ways to excuse the (mis)handling of others' patches. Sorry, Ingo, but that's what I see.
--Charlie
/.
Your batteries also produce waste chemicals as they generate electricity to run your devices. Where do those chemicals go? Think about it.
The DMFC technology doesn't need cooling to the degree that other laptop parts do - in fact Li-Ion batteries might get hotter than a DMFC cell, according to the inventors.
I wonder why the article doesn't talk about traditional recharging from a wall outlet? As I understand it, DMFC is an outgrowth of PEM technology, and generic PEM cells can be "run backwards" to recreate their fuel mix - much like a traditional battery, but with the additional requirement of avoiding carbon poisoning of the membrane.
--Charlie
/.
Good points, proving that the technology won't be for everyone until the local chemist shop (drugstore or druggist to us Norte Americanos) starts carrying methanol cartridges.
But hey, not everybody can get inkjet packs either - yet inkjets are still eminently marketable.
At 33 cents a gallon USD, vendors can easily put a 1000% markup on the refill cartridges. That prospect should quickly take care of the infrastructure problem in capitalist markets! Eventually, you might see business-class hotels keeping methanol on hand in the same way they stock coffee and toothpaste.
--Charlie
/.
I know it's a good idea to completely block the Comcast management subnet addresses (look at your firewall and see who is hitting NNTP every hour - that's them.
BUT: there are tools available that can partially see through many firewalls - for example nmap can gather some info through freesco (not enough to do any harm, but enough to positively ID the system).
Does anyone know what tools and techniques Comcast will be using, or what addresses they will source from?
I'm not looking for speculation - why help them out after all - just any hard info anyone might happen to have.
Thanx!
--Charlie
/.
As you say, by itself egress filtering will not solve the DoS problem.
What it does is prevent most forms of IP source address spoofing.
When the source of a (D)DoS is known, the problem is half solved. The other half is action on the part of ISP to actually cut off customers who abuse other netizens.
Egress filtering is an Internet "Best Current Practice" according to the RFCs. Performance considerations are a red herring thrown up by ISPs who want an excuse to continue doing shoddy work; any link can be egress filtered with current technology in a properly architected WAN.
But obviously, if they can't be bothered to conform to Internet BCP RFCs, they are unlikely to take action against net abusers either - until somebody makes them, perhaps?
Another thought: if clueless nimda/trinoo/tribe/stahldracht zombies were unceremoniously kicked off the net, Microsoft would suddenly have to get a lot more proactive with security issues.
--Charlie
/.
Back in the day, before the Internet went commercial, if you abused your connection your upstream provider (typically a bunch of long-hairs at a land-grant university) would cut you off. If they didn't do it, their upstream provider would cut them off.
Currently, there is no real penalty for large ISPs who do not implement egress filtering (which prevents IP source spoofing) and/or refuse to co-operate in tracking down DOS sources.
The anti-spam vigilantes have been partially effective in cutting off ISP service to the worst spammers; perhaps something similar is needed to influence the ISPs who refuse to implement egress filters.
--Charlie
/.
Given the philosophy expounded in "Under the Radar" and other Red Hat sources, it's very interesting that AOL wants them.
Remember, Red Hat is about establishing "brand loyalty" in a commodity market - the idea is that the name should inspire user trust, the users should believe they can count on the Red Hat label to mean a solid, dependable level of quality.
This is the opposite of the "BUY ME NOW I HAVE MORE FEATURES I'M REALLY COOL" marketing approach that has historically led to massive bloat without timely bug-fixes.
Now, if Red Hat has succeeded in this, AOL can pick them up and Joe Consumer will continue to buy the product until he has been thoroughly abused by the new owners, however long that takes.
If Red Hat has *not* built true brand loyalty, the legions of Red Hat consumers will immediately switch distros to whatever new company employs Marc Ewing, Alan Cox and the gang (call it "Blue Hat" or whatever).
Or, maybe linux users are beyond all that and the Red Hat marketing engine is just as out of touch as any other software company?
--Charlie
/.
These thingies are too small to be able to affect their own positions much. A raindrop falling nearby, a rock thrown by an errant child, current abberations, the flip of a fishes' tail; anything like that would move the nanite so far out of position it might take hours to recover. It's going to have a very teensy little propellor after all, and you can't count on water being entirely still in the real world.
If you use so many of them that you affect (even slightly) the transparency of the water, you've got another pollution problem...
--Charlie
/.
The article specified weak radio signals as the method of inter-nodal communication, but propagation of radio frequencies through water that isn't nano-pure really sucks.
Sonar seems more feasible, particularly in salt water where radio doesn't work worth a damn. Of course then you'd have to worry about noise pollution... hey, wait, even if the radio signals work you are going to be really messing with electrically sensitive organisms (electric eels being the obvious example, but they aren't the only ones).
--Charlie
/.
If you look at Philips' history in regards to audio tape cassettes (which are based on Nazi technology, like most magnetic recording)I think you will find that they recognize the obvious benefits of unrestricted recording hardware.
Hey, doesn't Philips own several content providers? Polygram for one?
--Charlie
/.
If you are only interested in fast-twitch games, why did you use such a trollish subject line? You might have made a point, but instead you just look like a fool to people who know that strategy games like the wonderful FREECIV are plenty stable - more so than many non-linux games.
--Charlie
I can't think about the implications of this right now, I'm supposed to be re-engineering software systems but I'm just about to win my Solitaire game.
--Charlie
/. .RPM and recompiled without the patches the same configuration worked fine, and I now have it in use on the test box.
The problem, specifically, is in the patches that Red Hat added to Paul Makerras' code base. I had a working configuration that was in regular use for Win98 and MacOS dial-ins running under 6.22, and that same configuration completely failed to work under 7.2. Once I installed the source
This is a known problem that was reported to Red Hat's Bugzilla box as bug #55367 and apparently the patch that causes it was obtained from Dell (see Bugzilla #15738). The comments all refer to windows, but I know for a fact that it also affects pre-OSX macs, and I'd guess most DOS dialups as well.
From your comments I'd guess this doesn't affect dial-out, which is somewhat interesting. You haven't seen an update from Red Hat because there isn't one, they have not addressed the problem yet.
--Charlie
I've just recently started testing 2.4-based distributions - there didn't seem to be any point when they were only nominally stable.
Red Hat 7.2 seems useable, except for the broken pppd.
--Charlie
Realistically, anyone can make a document faster using DR-DOS and Professional Write than using MSOffice and MSwindows on the same hardware. That's simply the cold hard truth, go do the experiment and see for yourself. The DOS box would be more stable, faster, and cheaper too!
But people are marketed into believing that they need additional features, and buy into bloat. I've always suspected it'd be faster and more efficient, in the long run, for people to learn how to spell than to learn how to use spell checkers.
--Charlie