I have been reading Slashdot for several years. I created a new troll account just to post this, because all my other troll accounts are too well known. And here is what I have to say to all you sad computer geeks and stupid sci-fi nerds:
Umm...successful at what? Certainly no one is making the gobs of money MS is used to.
Really what economic reason can be given for them to change their behavior? Because if there is a valid one, and not just "Microsoft should play nice because its the right thing to do", they will change their tune in a heartbeat.
Lets also not forget, Samba was always about working around Microsoft networking - coding around their API's. They are all public, so there is no reason they can't do so again. Patent or no patent, it is legal to perform reverse engineering to ensure compatibility.
manufacturers can't make money off anything they can't patent
I might agree with you if you were talking about software, but you're not, you're talking about hardware players.
Hardware developers usually benefit more using open source because there are no royalties to be paid to software owners. This is why Linux is making great inroads in the embedded device market. An Ogg Vorbis player wouldn't have to pay royalties to Fraunhofer/Thomson, but every MP3 player does.
The only thing missing in this equation is popular support of Ogg Vorbis, but from the comments posted on this story, it looks like its becoming more and more popular.
certain audio wave shapes have the capacity to damage the circuitry of the player and/or speaker equipment.
Not true. There is lots of electronic music/noise out there. Any decent synthesizer can reproduce virtually any waveform at any audible frequency, and this stuff has been recorded. If Pictures at an Exhibition by ELP doesn't damage your speakers, its unlikely that this would.
Not only that, but only those IIS servers that haven't been patched. I don't know of anyone running IIS who doesn't at least get the Microsoft Security Bulletins. If there is a patch available for anything you'll hear about it on the mailing list. I didn't really worry about this one at all.
I have to wonder though - with both Code Red and Sircam, as well as a number of other virii - the damage inflicted by these programs was much less than it could have been. Its as if the virus writer wanted to grab lots of attention(I'm sure having the national media talk about your creation is very gratifying to these people) rather than inflict as much damage as possible.
I mostly agree but...I'm not talking about eccentricities or fetishes here. I'm talking about repulsive(rape, murder, incest) and disgusting(pre-teen sex, lolita) things being the most popular items our community is looking for! These materials are clearly illegal - what respect do I owe the people who consume and distribute them?
And, its really disturbing if these are the dominant thoughts in society - drowning out true art and culture. Picture America as a giant trailer park and the view of the rest of the world is that you are trash for living in it. There's nothing I can do, but I did have higher hopes for our society. I can be proud of my ancestors who fought in the Revolutionary War or who were the pioneers of their time. Will my descendants view me and my culture with the same pride?
Don't get me wrong - I strongly support freedom of speech, fair use, and file sharing, and I think the DMCA should be repealed.
That said, I have to wonder if I can be part of a community whose most popular searches include "lolita", "preteen", "rape", and "incest".
These are most definitely not the values I subscribe to. Furthermore, I don't particularly have much respect for the rights of those who solicit such material.
So call me an asshole, mod me down, whatever. I just wish there was a way to support the freedoms I believe in without having to associate or be associated with these pervs.
In 1976, Ernesto Miranda, age 34, was stabbed to death in a fight. Police arrested a suspect who, after choosing to exercise his Miranda rights of silence, was released.
Don't feel bad though. There have been many others thrown off by my sig. Which is why I've kept it for so long.:)
Not quite. Rosa Parks was selected by the NAACP to challenge the segregation laws that existed at the time. Her "sit-in" was a planned protest and she was specifically chosen because she was a nice church-going older lady(read: not an angry young male) who was in good standing in her community.
The anti-DMCA movement could use a Rosa Parks! Imagine the reaction if we could find a nice, sweet older (American, church-going, etc) lady who was willing to be imprisoned because she circumvented copy protection. Instead we have a Russian Hacker. A double negative connotation.
The problem with secure Linuces is they are pretty boring for most people. With Red Hat, you get so many bells and whistles with the basic install. In case you haven't noticed, features sell software, not security.
In fact, the best, most secure OS's have hardly any features at all other than basic command line programs. To create a secure system, you should start with a stripped down OS and only turn on the services and run programs that you need. That way, you know your system and everything that is running on it.
Start out with the basic Debian system(~15MB), and add the software you want. You'll have to understand any services you run(HTTP, FTP, SSH, etc) and you'll have to install and enable those services yourself.
Even better, go with OpenBSD. There hasn't been an OpenBSD box(default install anyway) that has been rooted in the last 4 years. With this report that shows how boxes are routinely scanned in the first 72 hours they are on the net, the OpenBSD statistic looks very impressive.
As long as bells and whistles sell software, we will always have security problems. I don't see the emphasis on features going away anytime soon either. Thus, security professionals will always be in demand and stories about crackers and virus authors will continue to be commonplace.
Why is someone who owns a gun and determined to defend his right to do so a "nut"?
Is there something intriniscally nutty about owning a gun? Or is this just another example of the logical fallacy of attacking the person you are arguing with rather than coming up with a valid argument to support your conclusion?
Everytime you call someone a "gun nut" you actually weaken any rational argument in favor of gun control. So don't do it. Rather, explain why the 2nd amendment is flawed and why individual citizens should not own firearms. Do so in a way that makes your argument stronger than the argument of those who maintain that the right to own firearms is an important liberty.
Unless you can't come up with such an argument in which case using a logical fallacy is your only hope. Hmm, come to think of it thats probably why the term "gun nut" gets thrown around so much. Its too hard to come up with a valid argument, so you take the easy way out and label people.
Just but why do you think it would be illegal to run.NET-created binaries on GPL-licenced implementation?
Because those binaries would have to link to GPL code. A big part of.NET is the libraries of common functions you call in your programs. It is illegal to link to a GPL library with a non-free binary; this is why the LGPL was created. Read Stallman's "=Why you shouldn't use the Library GPL for your next library for a better explanation than I can give.
If Mono is released under the GPL non-free binaries cannot legally run on it.
if they intend for.NET to be an ECMA standard. Anyone can implement this. The.NET reference will be released under a BSD-style licence and the reference implementation will be on Free BSD.
Here's the kicker, though. If Ximian releases Mono under the GPL, what happens when you run binaries created by.NET? You wouldn't be able to legally run those on Mono, or at least you couldn't distribute those binaries to Mono users. Basically Ximian has an opportunity to create a version of.NET that is incompatible with non-GPL versions of.NET.
I think Ximian would be shooting itself in the foot by doing so, but there's no reason they can't. It wouldn't benefit Mono users by doing that, but it sure would fracture the.NET community. I'm sure this is the scenario Microsoft wants to avoid. Frankly I think I would see this as being childish on Ximians part if they do release Mono on the GPL. They should keep it under a BSD licence so any program created by any.NEt compiler can run on it.
yes, Microsoft has their own versions of strings, bool, and several different number types. If you go to look for code examples invariably these MS-only types are used.
I imagine this is partly to lock the programmer in, however to their credit they have invented a complete standard of writing C programs(Hungarian notation, etc.) that is very clean and consistent. So once you get used to writing C/C++ programs the Windows way, you can be fairly productive with their libraries and coding standards. The tradeoff is that you are locked in.
Just use either the C or C++ standard libraries if you are trying to write functions that are portable. Otherwise you WILL be writing functions that work only on Windows.
Another point that doesn't get brought up enough is that in the days of Thomas Paine most people were self-reliant farmers and money was a luxury, not a necessity. Even 60 years ago during the Depression a lot of families(mine included) were able to live off of what they could grow.
I think there is a lot to be said about that self-reliant attitude that tipped power in the hands of the individual. Today, we have lost that, and thus are more and more dependent on the rich and powerful not only to provide us with goods, but also with the money to buy them.
I can't speak for anyone else, but one of my main goals in life is to get back some of that self-reliance my ancestors had. Things like owning a piece of farmland and maybe a solar/wind powered house.
Trading freedom for technological convenience has proven to be a bad bargain. I want freedom.
How many people will pay to use a proprietary format?
Well, that would be anyone who has ever bought an MP3 player. Or used an MP3 encoder. Legally, you gotta pay Fraunhofer/Thompson for every player or encoder.
I'm amazed they got this far with as strict of a licence they have. Encoders like lame or bladenc are in reality, illegal to use unless you have a licence. So if you run Linux and burn MP3's, its likely you are breaking the law.
I'm surprised the Free Software community hasn't rallied more around Ogg Vorbis, given the harsh licencing of MP3.
Wouldn't a national laboratory like LANL be eligible for Microsoft's 'Shared Source' program?
Then they could fix the bug in their database that the Russians found.
For all the MS-bashing on this story, the bug seems a bit esoteric. All software has bugs. I doubt they would be better off with an open source database given the mission-criticalness of the application. The best open-source database is still incomplete compared to any commercial RDBMS.
Also, if it is just a bug in SELECT statements, no data is actually being lost - its just not showing up where it should be.
I like traditional books, but computer books seem ideal in electronic format. All that information at your fingertips & searchable.
Just a little tip about the O'reilly books - they are only about 90MB each. I got the Unix, Networking, and Perl Bookshelves and burned them to a single CD. Its pretty cool carrying around 18 books on a single disk. Like I said, I only wish there were more of these.
Is that a bad thing? Are you aware that Mozilla is designed so that applications can be built with it?
Since the integration of IE with windows, it has been very integral to my system. A browser makes an ideal way to access the contents of your computer. Hyperlinks are an ideal way to link related documents.
Exactly what is wrong with having the browser be part of the OS? It does OS-like things in a very natural way, and you have the advantage of using the same tool to browse the internet that you use to browse your hard drive.
Why should Microsoft be forced to remove IE from Windows? That to me seems the weakest of the antitrust arguments, because it is clear to me that IE is not just "bundled" but an integral part of the system.
If someone has a clear refutation of the above, I'd be very interested to hear it.
AFAIK, they do document all their interfaces. Which is not to say you have the source, but at least you have the API and can call any existing Windows function. This puts 3rd party software on the safe playing field as MSware.
Wine's job is difficult because they have to reimplement the API - meaning rewrite all the Windows functions from scratch.
If there are any undocumented functions in Windows anymore, they are very likely obsolete functions that have since been replaced by something better. This doesn't help a project like Wine, which would like to run any software written for Windows - if there are older programs that make calls to obsolete functions, Wine somehow needs to know about these. Still, that in no way prevents you from writing competitive software for Windows.
I once argued with Jeremy Allison(lead Samba programmer) about this back when there was still an undocumented feature of Windows - single sign-on. Single sign-on was the only example Allison was able to give of undocumented functions. However, even this is now documented and anyone can write programs that use built in Windows authentication to authenticate their own programs.
Since that has been taken care of, I don't think there are any hidden functions in Windows. MS says there aren't and there are about 1,000 universities/companies who have the Windows source code who could come forth and refute this, but they haven't.
Slashdot Mirror
YHBT!
Umm...successful at what? Certainly no one is making the gobs of money MS is used to.
Really what economic reason can be given for them to change their behavior? Because if there is a valid one, and not just "Microsoft should play nice because its the right thing to do", they will change their tune in a heartbeat.
Lets also not forget, Samba was always about working around Microsoft networking - coding around their API's. They are all public, so there is no reason they can't do so again. Patent or no patent, it is legal to perform reverse engineering to ensure compatibility.
I might agree with you if you were talking about software, but you're not, you're talking about hardware players.
Hardware developers usually benefit more using open source because there are no royalties to be paid to software owners. This is why Linux is making great inroads in the embedded device market. An Ogg Vorbis player wouldn't have to pay royalties to Fraunhofer/Thomson, but every MP3 player does.
The only thing missing in this equation is popular support of Ogg Vorbis, but from the comments posted on this story, it looks like its becoming more and more popular.
Intelligence: Finding an error in a Knuth text.
Not true. There is lots of electronic music/noise out there. Any decent synthesizer can reproduce virtually any waveform at any audible frequency, and this stuff has been recorded. If Pictures at an Exhibition by ELP doesn't damage your speakers, its unlikely that this would.
Intelligence: Finding an error in a Knuth text.
I'll love it too when the Justice Dept. forces me to pay an extra $49 for the "Microsoft Bonus Pack" featuring IE and Windows Media Player.
Seriously, IE is so far ahead of other browsers MS could charge for it, but they don't.
Does anyone really think justice would be served forcing millions of Windows users to pay for the extras that you now get for free?
Intelligence: Finding an error in a Knuth text.
Not only that, but only those IIS servers that haven't been patched. I don't know of anyone running IIS who doesn't at least get the Microsoft Security Bulletins. If there is a patch available for anything you'll hear about it on the mailing list. I didn't really worry about this one at all.
I have to wonder though - with both Code Red and Sircam, as well as a number of other virii - the damage inflicted by these programs was much less than it could have been. Its as if the virus writer wanted to grab lots of attention(I'm sure having the national media talk about your creation is very gratifying to these people) rather than inflict as much damage as possible.
And, its really disturbing if these are the dominant thoughts in society - drowning out true art and culture. Picture America as a giant trailer park and the view of the rest of the world is that you are trash for living in it. There's nothing I can do, but I did have higher hopes for our society. I can be proud of my ancestors who fought in the Revolutionary War or who were the pioneers of their time. Will my descendants view me and my culture with the same pride?
Intelligence: Finding an error in a Knuth text.
That said, I have to wonder if I can be part of a community whose most popular searches include "lolita", "preteen", "rape", and "incest".
These are most definitely not the values I subscribe to. Furthermore, I don't particularly have much respect for the rights of those who solicit such material.
So call me an asshole, mod me down, whatever. I just wish there was a way to support the freedoms I believe in without having to associate or be associated with these pervs.
Intelligence: Finding an error in a Knuth text.
Don't feel bad though. There have been many others thrown off by my sig. Which is why I've kept it for so long. :)
Intelligence: Finding an error in a Knuth text.
Not quite. Rosa Parks was selected by the NAACP to challenge the segregation laws that existed at the time. Her "sit-in" was a planned protest and she was specifically chosen because she was a nice church-going older lady(read: not an angry young male) who was in good standing in her community.
The anti-DMCA movement could use a Rosa Parks! Imagine the reaction if we could find a nice, sweet older (American, church-going, etc) lady who was willing to be imprisoned because she circumvented copy protection. Instead we have a Russian Hacker. A double negative connotation.
Intelligence: Finding an error in a Knuth text.
In fact, the best, most secure OS's have hardly any features at all other than basic command line programs. To create a secure system, you should start with a stripped down OS and only turn on the services and run programs that you need. That way, you know your system and everything that is running on it.
Start out with the basic Debian system(~15MB), and add the software you want. You'll have to understand any services you run(HTTP, FTP, SSH, etc) and you'll have to install and enable those services yourself.
Even better, go with OpenBSD. There hasn't been an OpenBSD box(default install anyway) that has been rooted in the last 4 years. With this report that shows how boxes are routinely scanned in the first 72 hours they are on the net, the OpenBSD statistic looks very impressive.
As long as bells and whistles sell software, we will always have security problems. I don't see the emphasis on features going away anytime soon either. Thus, security professionals will always be in demand and stories about crackers and virus authors will continue to be commonplace.
Is there something intriniscally nutty about owning a gun? Or is this just another example of the logical fallacy of attacking the person you are arguing with rather than coming up with a valid argument to support your conclusion?
Everytime you call someone a "gun nut" you actually weaken any rational argument in favor of gun control. So don't do it. Rather, explain why the 2nd amendment is flawed and why individual citizens should not own firearms. Do so in a way that makes your argument stronger than the argument of those who maintain that the right to own firearms is an important liberty.
Unless you can't come up with such an argument in which case using a logical fallacy is your only hope. Hmm, come to think of it thats probably why the term "gun nut" gets thrown around so much. Its too hard to come up with a valid argument, so you take the easy way out and label people.
Because those binaries would have to link to GPL code. A big part of .NET is the libraries of common functions you call in your programs. It is illegal to link to a GPL library with a non-free binary; this is why the LGPL was created. Read Stallman's "=Why you shouldn't use the Library GPL for your next library for a better explanation than I can give.
If Mono is released under the GPL non-free binaries cannot legally run on it.
Here's the kicker, though. If Ximian releases Mono under the GPL, what happens when you run binaries created by .NET? You wouldn't be able to legally run those on Mono, or at least you couldn't distribute those binaries to Mono users. Basically Ximian has an opportunity to create a version of .NET that is incompatible with non-GPL versions of .NET.
I think Ximian would be shooting itself in the foot by doing so, but there's no reason they can't. It wouldn't benefit Mono users by doing that, but it sure would fracture the .NET community. I'm sure this is the scenario Microsoft wants to avoid. Frankly I think I would see this as being childish on Ximians part if they do release Mono on the GPL. They should keep it under a BSD licence so any program created by any .NEt compiler can run on it.
Thats some highly vitriolic lawyering there!
yes, Microsoft has their own versions of strings, bool, and several different number types. If you go to look for code examples invariably these MS-only types are used. I imagine this is partly to lock the programmer in, however to their credit they have invented a complete standard of writing C programs(Hungarian notation, etc.) that is very clean and consistent. So once you get used to writing C/C++ programs the Windows way, you can be fairly productive with their libraries and coding standards. The tradeoff is that you are locked in. Just use either the C or C++ standard libraries if you are trying to write functions that are portable. Otherwise you WILL be writing functions that work only on Windows.
I think there is a lot to be said about that self-reliant attitude that tipped power in the hands of the individual. Today, we have lost that, and thus are more and more dependent on the rich and powerful not only to provide us with goods, but also with the money to buy them.
I can't speak for anyone else, but one of my main goals in life is to get back some of that self-reliance my ancestors had. Things like owning a piece of farmland and maybe a solar/wind powered house.
Trading freedom for technological convenience has proven to be a bad bargain. I want freedom.
Well, that would be anyone who has ever bought an MP3 player. Or used an MP3 encoder. Legally, you gotta pay Fraunhofer/Thompson for every player or encoder.
I'm amazed they got this far with as strict of a licence they have. Encoders like lame or bladenc are in reality, illegal to use unless you have a licence. So if you run Linux and burn MP3's, its likely you are breaking the law.
I'm surprised the Free Software community hasn't rallied more around Ogg Vorbis, given the harsh licencing of MP3.
Then they could fix the bug in their database that the Russians found.
For all the MS-bashing on this story, the bug seems a bit esoteric. All software has bugs. I doubt they would be better off with an open source database given the mission-criticalness of the application. The best open-source database is still incomplete compared to any commercial RDBMS.
Also, if it is just a bug in SELECT statements, no data is actually being lost - its just not showing up where it should be.
Can anyone comment on the limits of solid-state?
Just a little tip about the O'reilly books - they are only about 90MB each. I got the Unix, Networking, and Perl Bookshelves and burned them to a single CD. Its pretty cool carrying around 18 books on a single disk. Like I said, I only wish there were more of these.
Since the integration of IE with windows, it has been very integral to my system. A browser makes an ideal way to access the contents of your computer. Hyperlinks are an ideal way to link related documents.
Exactly what is wrong with having the browser be part of the OS? It does OS-like things in a very natural way, and you have the advantage of using the same tool to browse the internet that you use to browse your hard drive.
Why should Microsoft be forced to remove IE from Windows? That to me seems the weakest of the antitrust arguments, because it is clear to me that IE is not just "bundled" but an integral part of the system.
If someone has a clear refutation of the above, I'd be very interested to hear it.
Wine's job is difficult because they have to reimplement the API - meaning rewrite all the Windows functions from scratch.
If there are any undocumented functions in Windows anymore, they are very likely obsolete functions that have since been replaced by something better. This doesn't help a project like Wine, which would like to run any software written for Windows - if there are older programs that make calls to obsolete functions, Wine somehow needs to know about these. Still, that in no way prevents you from writing competitive software for Windows.
I once argued with Jeremy Allison(lead Samba programmer) about this back when there was still an undocumented feature of Windows - single sign-on. Single sign-on was the only example Allison was able to give of undocumented functions. However, even this is now documented and anyone can write programs that use built in Windows authentication to authenticate their own programs.
Since that has been taken care of, I don't think there are any hidden functions in Windows. MS says there aren't and there are about 1,000 universities/companies who have the Windows source code who could come forth and refute this, but they haven't.
True. But when Miranda was later murdered, the suspect used his right to remain silent and was acquitted. Thus, the irony.