1) Generally most users don't run as root and therfore the damage from viruses that do happen tend to be more limtied.
2) There are less viruses written to run on Linux
3) Linux desktop apps are not as tightly integrated as windows apps. Most nasty windows virus problems are caused because of interactions of multiple applications. A virus gets to you through a microsoft word document that launches your outlook client that sends the virus elsewhere.
As far as the arguments that running as root is a convenience issue, I would point out that OSX which is based on BSD doesn't have users running as root.
Wow, all the small players without any marketing clout are being beaten into submission by large companies with substantial resources? That's so unlike every other media industry out there:)
The effect will not be to shift the money accross geographic boundaries, but rather, class boundaries. The money will continue to shift upward. The jobs will shift overseas, only because they can be paid less there. That will drive down wages here, and then when the wages in that country start to rise, production will be moved yet again to an even cheaper market.
Ultimately though the people who will benefit the most from this are those who control capital and the means of production. They will be able to drive down costs, and thus drive up profits. More money will flow up to the top because of this. This will be a global phenomenon.
What's the status of that code in ther kernel. If it's ruled a violate of copyright, what happens to that code? Who's responsible for getting rid of it? Do they need to get rid of it?
Let's assume for the moment that some IBM engineer took some code from SCO and added it to Linux. What is the consequence for the Linux kernel and other distros who did not intend to violate their copyright? I'm assuming that the GPL would cause all the legal liability to fall on the shoulders of the people who added the code, but then somebody still has to go and scour that code out of the kernel right?
This is messy, but then it gets even worse when you consider the notion of code forks, etc. What if Linus removes it, but for whatever reason a fork over at SUSE doesn't get removed? What if they don't bother, can SCO get a court order to force removal?
Go and buy a copy, put it on your own server for download. Then there will be a downloadable version. Or heck, charge for downloads, but charge less than they do. It's all legit, it's GNU!
A network is secure if it costs more to an intruder to break in than the value of the information being protected.
Network security must exist within a context of what is being protected and who would want to break in. If you are protecting your personal information, the amount of security that is needed is substantially less than if you are a major bank. Sure, your design might have some holes in it. In fact, I guarantee that it does, but if it's too much hassle to exploit those holes, then nobody's going to bother.
Your lawsuit would be thrown out of court because you don't have standing to bring a claim. You aren't a hardware manufacturer, or a retail chain, or a provider of some service that's, in theory, being harmed by these devices. You'll blow some money on a lawyer and totally waste your time.
Now, if you had a reasonable fear that your activities would be subject to lawsuit, you could try to get an affirmation from the court as to whether your actions were legal or not. The only problem with this approach, as we've seen in recent DMCA legal wrangingling, is that the judge may throw it out, once again, because you have no standing.
Also, as far as suing retailers over possession of these devices, the law doesn't address that. I can certainly use NAT within my corporate network, and I can use NAT on my Internet service assuming my provider is okay with it. It's just saying that I can't use NAT unless they say it is okay.
The simple solution to all of this is to pay more money, either to the company who is making you pay per connection now, or buying into a service that doesn't care. I have DSL service through speakeasy and they don't care what I do. I run servers, I use NAT, and they are totally happy. I pay more and I get more. As long as there is competition in the market this isn't a problem.
So I've seen quite a bit about the super DMCA legislation and I hadn't heard anything about efforts to pass such a thing in Illinois. Well, turns out that it was passed in July of last year. I heard nothing about it at the time, of course, and so it's a bit too late to do anything abou it. Sure, you can try to get a law repealed, but it's significantly more difficult to get a law off the books than it is to keep it off in the first place.
Even if this chip's architecture turns out to be a dud, they'll have plants ready to produce 65 nanometer processors. Eventually they'll have some chips running at 65 nanometers, and they'll have a fab ready to produce it. Worst case scenario is that they can sell their fab capabilities to other companies that want to run at 65 nanometers. The odds that these plants won't have a long run value seems pretty small to me.
The reason that they won't touch OSS is because they perceive risk to their careers in going with it. It's not that OSS is more or less buggy, it's a matter of them having to take the blame if it goes badly. If you buy from a proprietary software vendor, then you've got somebody that you are paying, that you can yell at if things go wrong. The decision to use their software won't ever be questioned, and either they'll be made to fix it, or another vendor will be chosen. The decision to pick that vendor will likely never be questioned as long as the manager can show some due diligence in making the decision.
On the other hand, if they choose an open source product, if there is a bug, there's nobody to pass the buck too. So the manager is taking on the burden of responsibility if that software does have bugs in it. He'll be perceived as exposing the company to unnecessary risk just to save a few bucks.
This is part of an overall attitude problem in corporate america. Managers, generally, suffer more for a mistake than they gain for a success. Success is expected, that's doing your job. Failure is incompetence. Of course failure caused by an effort to get the company ahead of the game is still failure, so why take the risk. Hire contractors, and pay for software vendors because if there is a mistake you just dump the blame onto them, cut ties, and your job is secure.
This suggests that because of a shrinking work force there will be greater demand for people to fill the large number of open positions. This doesn't mean that those jobs can't be sent to cheaper overseas locations. In fact, there will be far greater incentive to do so with sky rocketing labor costs here do to a shrinking work force. Sure, the number of employees needed will double but that doesn't mean they'll all be working in the US.
Hehe, this sounds eerily familiar. I worked at OfficeMax several years ago and unlike every other electronics department in town, we were not on comission, AND knew what we were talking about:). I remember routinely recommending computers from other places like Gateway 2000 over what we sold at our store. Of course this worked out nicely because they'd come back and buy their printers from us which was where we actually made money. We lost money on most of the computers we sold.
You'd get that same behavior in computers that you get in printers. People coming and buying Packard Bell despite alll of our warnings to the contrary. Or the best was when somebody would come in who'd bough a piece of crap from another place and then we'd give the sympathy and find them a good system.
While what you are saying about decreasing prices being offset by the cost of consumables. If your $40 printer dies quickly then you aren't going to spend enough on consumables to offset the printer company's costs in the original printer. Seems like it would be in their interest to make cheap printers, but yet ones that would last forever so that people would keep buying more ink for them.
That's exactly why printers, and many other electronic devices, increasingly, suck. When you went to Walmart, did you do a thorough comparison of the quality of these devices? Did you get test pages, check the durability of the construction, and ask the opinions of other people who owned them? Of course not, if you had that $40 printer would still be on the shelf at WalMart.
The problem is that today, most people are comparing devices based on price and nothing else. So, if a manufacturer can undercut its competitors prices by reducing the quality a few notches they'll do it every time. Until consumers, in general, prioritize things like quality and customer service over price, you can expect devices to continue to suck.
This guy could make a hundred copies of that CD, hand them and the key out to his friends, but if there was a license, only one would have that legal document proving ownership. A CD and a key number don't prove legal ownership.
One of the problems I see with efforts to try to get the DMCA and similar legislation revoked and prevented in the future, is a matter of signal to noise. Most voters don't care about the DMCA or even know about it, and those who do usually have to worry about more important priorities like the state of the economy or the war in Iraq. So, my question is, how can we possibly make the DMCA and it's kin important issues to our legislators? Sure, I can write them, but if they are given the choice of voting for the DMCA and getting some campaign money, or voting against and pleasing a handful of constituents, which will they choose?
It's unlikely that the handful of consitutents is going to vote against the candidate purely because of their DMCA stance. Personally, I'm very against the DMCA but when the election time comes around, I'm not voting for the anti-DMCA candidate, I'm voting for the guy who's going to fix the economy and patch our international relationships. So how can somebody like myself really get their voice heard by the right people when the threat of "voting for the other candidate" isn't credible?
Excellent story on NPR
on
4l-j4z333ra 0wn3d
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
I forget what show I was listening to, but on NPR yesterday, there was an interview with somebody in charge of an english language newspaper in the middle east. He had a really good perspective on this. Basically what it boils down to is that both CNN and Al Jazeera are commercial operations and it is in their best interest to present news that caters to the views of their audiences. So you see and endless stream of armchair quarterback generals on CNN and you see bloodied civilians on Al Jazeera.
One thing that they didn't go on to say in the story was the effect that this should have over the long term. If news outlets, being commercial organizations, are going to present news that enforces people's preconceived notions, it leads to a natural polarity of belief. People who are liberal will tend to get liberal news from liberal sources and find themselves even further removed from conservatives or the truth that exists somewhere in the middle. Vice versa for the conservatives.
The difference between 8.x and the previous releases is that they actually got their.0 release right this time. Traditionally the.0 releases have had a number of major issues, but with 8.0, I've really been impressed with it. So no need to do some minor version upgrades I guess.
1) Stop laying people off. If you have to make sacrifices, then make them accross the whole oragnization, temporary pay cuts, etc.
2) Management should make an effort to understand the work that the people are doing.
Ultimately morale is usually tied to a sense that the company is going in a positive direction and that the smallest underlings are appreciated. You can't fake morale. Company picnics or group bonding experiences are poor substitutes for a real sense of cohesion.
Sun makes money by charging for the testing and certification and licensing of the J2EE standard to the likes of IBM and BEA. If I can download a free product, that's licensing fees that don't go to Sun. Sure, I'm not buying Microsoft's products, but it's not like Sun would be benefiting either.
I mean look at Windows. It's had this long reputation of being insecure, so naturally everybody assumes it still is. When really it's... oh... nevermiond.
This looks like it could be a good platform, but I'm immediately concerned with the fact that it doesn't come with a CD-ROM drive. It says it's an optional add on, but it's going to be awfully hard to wipe Lindows off there and put a real Linux on it without a CD-ROM (hmmmmm....).
According to Tom's Hardware: Depending on the particular benchmark, an old Celeron 667 is either considerably faster or considerably slower, making it difficult to specify a recommendation for VIA's C3
So ultimately the raw performance is going to be rather dependent on the application. The video card looks to be adequate for office needs and some light 3D use, but it's nothing spectacular.
I find it interesting to note that the laptop contains no built in modem. Given that the modems built into most laptops don't work with linux, that's not surprising.
It looks like they are trying to find a niche in between hand helds and laptops. I'm not betting much on them having success in that space. The problem is that anything too big to fit in a shirt pocket or purse becomes a hassle to lug around. At that point, you have to have some other way to carry the device and you may as well get a full-size if lightweight laptop.
Slashdot Mirror
1) Generally most users don't run as root and therfore the damage from viruses that do happen tend to be more limtied.
2) There are less viruses written to run on Linux
3) Linux desktop apps are not as tightly integrated as windows apps. Most nasty windows virus problems are caused because of interactions of multiple applications. A virus gets to you through a microsoft word document that launches your outlook client that sends the virus elsewhere.
As far as the arguments that running as root is a convenience issue, I would point out that OSX which is based on BSD doesn't have users running as root.
Wow, all the small players without any marketing clout are being beaten into submission by large companies with substantial resources? That's so unlike every other media industry out there :)
The effect will not be to shift the money accross geographic boundaries, but rather, class boundaries. The money will continue to shift upward. The jobs will shift overseas, only because they can be paid less there. That will drive down wages here, and then when the wages in that country start to rise, production will be moved yet again to an even cheaper market.
Ultimately though the people who will benefit the most from this are those who control capital and the means of production. They will be able to drive down costs, and thus drive up profits. More money will flow up to the top because of this. This will be a global phenomenon.
What's the status of that code in ther kernel. If it's ruled a violate of copyright, what happens to that code? Who's responsible for getting rid of it? Do they need to get rid of it?
Let's assume for the moment that some IBM engineer took some code from SCO and added it to Linux. What is the consequence for the Linux kernel and other distros who did not intend to violate their copyright? I'm assuming that the GPL would cause all the legal liability to fall on the shoulders of the people who added the code, but then somebody still has to go and scour that code out of the kernel right?
This is messy, but then it gets even worse when you consider the notion of code forks, etc. What if Linus removes it, but for whatever reason a fork over at SUSE doesn't get removed? What if they don't bother, can SCO get a court order to force removal?
Go and buy a copy, put it on your own server for download. Then there will be a downloadable version. Or heck, charge for downloads, but charge less than they do. It's all legit, it's GNU!
A network is secure if it costs more to an intruder to break in than the value of the information being protected.
Network security must exist within a context of what is being protected and who would want to break in. If you are protecting your personal information, the amount of security that is needed is substantially less than if you are a major bank. Sure, your design might have some holes in it. In fact, I guarantee that it does, but if it's too much hassle to exploit those holes, then nobody's going to bother.
Your lawsuit would be thrown out of court because you don't have standing to bring a claim. You aren't a hardware manufacturer, or a retail chain, or a provider of some service that's, in theory, being harmed by these devices. You'll blow some money on a lawyer and totally waste your time.
Now, if you had a reasonable fear that your activities would be subject to lawsuit, you could try to get an affirmation from the court as to whether your actions were legal or not. The only problem with this approach, as we've seen in recent DMCA legal wrangingling, is that the judge may throw it out, once again, because you have no standing.
Also, as far as suing retailers over possession of these devices, the law doesn't address that. I can certainly use NAT within my corporate network, and I can use NAT on my Internet service assuming my provider is okay with it. It's just saying that I can't use NAT unless they say it is okay.
The simple solution to all of this is to pay more money, either to the company who is making you pay per connection now, or buying into a service that doesn't care. I have DSL service through speakeasy and they don't care what I do. I run servers, I use NAT, and they are totally happy. I pay more and I get more. As long as there is competition in the market this isn't a problem.
So I've seen quite a bit about the super DMCA legislation and I hadn't heard anything about efforts to pass such a thing in Illinois. Well, turns out that it was passed in July of last year.
I heard nothing about it at the time, of course, and so it's a bit too late to do anything abou it. Sure, you can try to get a law repealed, but it's significantly more difficult to get a law off the books than it is to keep it off in the first place.
Even if this chip's architecture turns out to be a dud, they'll have plants ready to produce 65 nanometer processors. Eventually they'll have some chips running at 65 nanometers, and they'll have a fab ready to produce it. Worst case scenario is that they can sell their fab capabilities to other companies that want to run at 65 nanometers. The odds that these plants won't have a long run value seems pretty small to me.
The reason that they won't touch OSS is because they perceive risk to their careers in going with it. It's not that OSS is more or less buggy, it's a matter of them having to take the blame if it goes badly. If you buy from a proprietary software vendor, then you've got somebody that you are paying, that you can yell at if things go wrong. The decision to use their software won't ever be questioned, and either they'll be made to fix it, or another vendor will be chosen. The decision to pick that vendor will likely never be questioned as long as the manager can show some due diligence in making the decision.
On the other hand, if they choose an open source product, if there is a bug, there's nobody to pass the buck too. So the manager is taking on the burden of responsibility if that software does have bugs in it. He'll be perceived as exposing the company to unnecessary risk just to save a few bucks.
This is part of an overall attitude problem in corporate america. Managers, generally, suffer more for a mistake than they gain for a success. Success is expected, that's doing your job. Failure is incompetence. Of course failure caused by an effort to get the company ahead of the game is still failure, so why take the risk. Hire contractors, and pay for software vendors because if there is a mistake you just dump the blame onto them, cut ties, and your job is secure.
Republican politicians - rich people
Democratic politicians - guilty rich people
This suggests that because of a shrinking work force there will be greater demand for people to fill the large number of open positions. This doesn't mean that those jobs can't be sent to cheaper overseas locations. In fact, there will be far greater incentive to do so with sky rocketing labor costs here do to a shrinking work force. Sure, the number of employees needed will double but that doesn't mean they'll all be working in the US.
Hehe, this sounds eerily familiar. I worked at OfficeMax several years ago and unlike every other electronics department in town, we were not on comission, AND knew what we were talking about :). I remember routinely recommending computers from other places like Gateway 2000 over what we sold at our store. Of course this worked out nicely because they'd come back and buy their printers from us which was where we actually made money. We lost money on most of the computers we sold.
You'd get that same behavior in computers that you get in printers. People coming and buying Packard Bell despite alll of our warnings to the contrary. Or the best was when somebody would come in who'd bough a piece of crap from another place and then we'd give the sympathy and find them a good system.
While what you are saying about decreasing prices being offset by the cost of consumables. If your $40 printer dies quickly then you aren't going to spend enough on consumables to offset the printer company's costs in the original printer. Seems like it would be in their interest to make cheap printers, but yet ones that would last forever so that people would keep buying more ink for them.
That's exactly why printers, and many other electronic devices, increasingly, suck. When you went to Walmart, did you do a thorough comparison of the quality of these devices? Did you get test pages, check the durability of the construction, and ask the opinions of other people who owned them? Of course not, if you had that $40 printer would still be on the shelf at WalMart.
The problem is that today, most people are comparing devices based on price and nothing else. So, if a manufacturer can undercut its competitors prices by reducing the quality a few notches they'll do it every time. Until consumers, in general, prioritize things like quality and customer service over price, you can expect devices to continue to suck.
Seedy bar. Toilet stall door.
"For a Good Time "
This guy could make a hundred copies of that CD, hand them and the key out to his friends, but if there was a license, only one would have that legal document proving ownership. A CD and a key number don't prove legal ownership.
One of the problems I see with efforts to try to get the DMCA and similar legislation revoked and prevented in the future, is a matter of signal to noise. Most voters don't care about the DMCA or even know about it, and those who do usually have to worry about more important priorities like the state of the economy or the war in Iraq. So, my question is, how can we possibly make the DMCA and it's kin important issues to our legislators? Sure, I can write them, but if they are given the choice of voting for the DMCA and getting some campaign money, or voting against and pleasing a handful of constituents, which will they choose?
It's unlikely that the handful of consitutents is going to vote against the candidate purely because of their DMCA stance. Personally, I'm very against the DMCA but when the election time comes around, I'm not voting for the anti-DMCA candidate, I'm voting for the guy who's going to fix the economy and patch our international relationships. So how can somebody like myself really get their voice heard by the right people when the threat of "voting for the other candidate" isn't credible?
I forget what show I was listening to, but on NPR yesterday, there was an interview with somebody in charge of an english language newspaper in the middle east. He had a really good perspective on this. Basically what it boils down to is that both CNN and Al Jazeera are commercial operations and it is in their best interest to present news that caters to the views of their audiences. So you see and endless stream of armchair quarterback generals on CNN and you see bloodied civilians on Al Jazeera.
One thing that they didn't go on to say in the story was the effect that this should have over the long term. If news outlets, being commercial organizations, are going to present news that enforces people's preconceived notions, it leads to a natural polarity of belief. People who are liberal will tend to get liberal news from liberal sources and find themselves even further removed from conservatives or the truth that exists somewhere in the middle. Vice versa for the conservatives.
The difference between 8.x and the previous releases is that they actually got their .0 release right this time. Traditionally the .0 releases have had a number of major issues, but with 8.0, I've really been impressed with it. So no need to do some minor version upgrades I guess.
1) Stop laying people off. If you have to make sacrifices, then make them accross the whole oragnization, temporary pay cuts, etc.
2) Management should make an effort to understand the work that the people are doing.
Ultimately morale is usually tied to a sense that the company is going in a positive direction and that the smallest underlings are appreciated. You can't fake morale. Company picnics or group bonding experiences are poor substitutes for a real sense of cohesion.
Sun makes money by charging for the testing and certification and licensing of the J2EE standard to the likes of IBM and BEA. If I can download a free product, that's licensing fees that don't go to Sun. Sure, I'm not buying Microsoft's products, but it's not like Sun would be benefiting either.
I mean look at Windows. It's had this long reputation of being insecure, so naturally everybody assumes it still is. When really it's... oh... nevermiond.
This looks like it could be a good platform, but I'm immediately concerned with the fact that it doesn't come with a CD-ROM drive. It says it's an optional add on, but it's going to be awfully hard to wipe Lindows off there and put a real Linux on it without a CD-ROM (hmmmmm....).
According to Tom's Hardware:
Depending on the particular benchmark, an old Celeron 667 is either considerably faster or considerably slower, making it difficult to specify a recommendation for VIA's C3
So ultimately the raw performance is going to be rather dependent on the application. The video card looks to be adequate for office needs and some light 3D use, but it's nothing spectacular.
I find it interesting to note that the laptop contains no built in modem. Given that the modems built into most laptops don't work with linux, that's not surprising.
It looks like they are trying to find a niche in between hand helds and laptops. I'm not betting much on them having success in that space. The problem is that anything too big to fit in a shirt pocket or purse becomes a hassle to lug around. At that point, you have to have some other way to carry the device and you may as well get a full-size if lightweight laptop.