If you want a distribution that ignores little things like freedom and your right to software that isn't under the thumb of one entity (remember, if it isn't source, it isn't software), you can always go off and use something else. But if you want a distribution that tries to do the right thing, use Debian or RedHat. There's a reason that Debian has the kind of ties to the FSF that they do: because they believe in free software and they stick to their beliefs because they are right.
Debian isn't about just getting a job done. Debian is about getting a job done right.
There are all kinds of strange techniques you can use to hide encryption. There are various methods of hiding the words or charecters making up the message inside another, completly innocent method. Then there's stegnography (sp?), which changes a file in order to hide another one inside of it, like adding extra spaces to the end of lines, or adding snow to an image.
How about Chinese dissidents sending PGPed email to residents of other countries, who then post the messages on Geocities? The Chinese could access the Internet without (as much) fear of retribution if they used these kinds of intermediaries.
China is using their tool as a means of controling their people. This is like threatening to kill someone with a hammer. And they are acting on their threats in order to maintain control. This is like killing someone with said hammer. I believe that the idea that it is wrong to kill someone with a hammer is not found solely in Western ideology.
Of course they do. MS started this whole IE thing because they feared Netscape. Specifically, they feared Netscape would liberate people from the MS desktop by providing a platform-independent enviroment.
While it may be a little extreme to compare Microsoft to Red China, the point is that they don't react like this to the Internet because they think it can work for them or because they don't get it, but because they see it as a treat to their control. It's like other mediums they censor, only more powerfull.
There was an article (on Salon?) a while ago about people in other countries watching US movies and wanting to have their Miranda rights read to them, only to discover they didn't have those rights outside of the US. The Chinese government fears that the Internet will give people a way to avoid and eventually dispose of their totalitarian control.
Isn't this man's crime horrible? He tried to contributed to the memory of those who had suffered for freedom! That deserves to be punished!
Um... no. The Internet is the ultimate stronghold of freedom because it is impossible to violate. Governments can restrict access to data, but they can't destroy it if it's mirrored somewhere beyond their reach. If this guy had just set up an Geocities account with a fake name (possibly acting through a resident of another nation), it would have been much harder to trace it back to him. The Internet is free because you can do things like that and it suddenly becomes orders of magniture harder to stop you.
The Internet is a place where you can be as anonymous or as well-known as you want. Becuase it is so difficult to stop people who put real effort into being anonymous from exercising their natural rights, it isn't worth the effort in many cases. As long as we can do things like that and avoid things like nation-wide firewalls censoring traffic, the Internet can't help being free.
This is a summery of the two major reasons this wouldn't work.
First, OSX!=Carbon: MS will use the part of OSX that acts like the old MacOS, not the new APIs. From the evidence that they'll just use Cocoa, not the new Carbon APIs. This means that it wouldn't really be a port to the BSD part of OSX at all.
Second, OSX is not just another BSD. It is a whole bunch of MacOS stuff, like the Carbon and Cocoa APIs and the GUI based on Aqua (the UI) and Quartz that is built around a BSD heart, Darwin. The MS software uses these APIs and the Aqua GUI, so it would be difficult to port to a BSD system without these. One that used X, for instance.
Maybe somebody could work on a project similar to WINE that would port these APIs to non-OSX Unix systems. But in the meantime, since this isn't avalible, it probably would be about the same as porting MacOS 7-9 to Unix.
From the Vorbis page, it is roughly on par at 128-160 kbps range, but with the encoder not really finished and the bugs still being shaken out for 1.0, it's really to early to tell.
Just download this file and compare the same file encoded with Vorbis to an MP3 and find out for yourself if you want numbers. Remember to test with a varity of files; every codec has strengths and weaknesses, though these should be basically similar.
NetBSD is avalible on a few more, but non-i386/Alpha platforms who are going for security are probably OpenBSD's future if they allow FreeBSD to catch up. I didn't think of that.
In a lot of cases, ports follow up major releases. The primary architecture is done first, and others are added a few days later of whatever. Probably all we have to do is wait a bit.
If this continues, no, OpenBSD will have no significant advantages over FreeBSD. But at this point, FreeBSD is not as heavily audited, so it is less efficient, and most but not all of the export restrictions have been lifted. OpenBSD has many strong points left, although the price isn't one of them.
Those of you who love KDE and GNOME: this comment wasn't meant to deride them or their users. But the fact is, when these two projects set out to build a standard GUI, they decided to imitate Windows. That's a big part of it. GNOME is great, like I said, I use it. I just don't happen to like the task bar, and gmc is sort of borderline in my opinion.
My ideal X setup, the one I use most often, is E 1600x1200x32 with a modified Brushed Metal theme. (It looks less Windowish). I can use the apps I like without the task bar that I don't like. I actually like the GNOME consistent interface overall (a few frustrating things, but every UI has those), whatever this comment may have lead you to believe.
So before you get the wrong idea, remember that I was trying to answer a question, not argue against GNOME and KDE. Sorry if it looked like I was coming out against a standardized desktop; all I'm saying is that they do serve a purpose (remember that this guy wanted that purpose explained) they do provide a standardized UI (like most of GNOME's app's UI, don't care for KDE's), and they do act like Windows.
Have you noticed that these standard desktops for X look a lot like Windows? KDE was designed to provide a free version of CDE (they must have gotten lost along the way), and CDE was designed so that Unix with Motif could catch up to Win3.1. This standard desktop idea is not new. I didn't intend to insult GNOME or KDE (I said that GNOME was fine. I just don't like it.)
The goals of these two projects are very similar goals: (I'm quoting now) "fill the need for an easy to use desktop for Unix workstations, similar to the desktop environments found under the MacOS or Window95/NT."
Other people have said that I'm against consitancy; I'm not. I just don't want the consistency that these two offer. The GTK-type interfaces used by GNOME are something I like, but they're probably the only part of GNOME's interface that I really like using. All I meant was that these projects are trying to provide standarized desktops, and one of their goals is to look like Windows to help users switch. That's one of their main goals, actually: user friendlyness, especially for users new to Linux. Look at some of the stuff RMS has written about GNOME.
I consider Blowfish fairly insecure compaired to other encryption utilities. It's an opinion. I brought up PGP because the algorithms it uses are more secure. Blowfish is safe to trust with you data, but I just don't like to.
I've used TWM with GNOME, and believe me, you cannnot get "as advanced as you want". GMC doesn't take kindly to being used with TWM, which does things like put title bars on every single icon. You have to use a GNOME-compliant WM or else things won't work so well. GNOME will give you warning messages and stuff, and it'll act wierd.
And those widgets should not be in the "OS proper," by which I take it you mean the kernel (You couldn't possibly mean a distro, because they are already in those). The expandibility of Linux through shared libraries the user can choose not to install is one of its advantages over Windows. If you plan to only use Win32 applications, you can't choose not to install the Win16 stuff.
I don't think that integration is for newbies, I just think that GNOME imitates Windows too closely (though it's not nearly as bad as KDE.)
Integration is fine, just give me options along with it. When ever I use GNOME, I am frustrated by all of the little things it does, the clumsy applets, etc (that's a personal opinion about how the applets work, not a comment about any of their technial attributes. But E's pager has the GNOME one beat.) As for consitency, it's fine. I like to have a consistent interface for apps. I the one used by GTK apps is actually pretty good, even though a few elements of it are frustrating.
E was never used as the WM for GNOME. GNOME let you pick a WM; E was the default. But E confused too many GNOME users because of the duplicated functionality (E's menus for instance, which I like, and GNOME's task bar, which I don't like)
You can get work done in GNOME. But my personal preference is to not get work done in GNOME, because when I try, I get frustrated by it.
Most of this applies to KDE: I don't like the browser and I don't like KDE's task bar. Yes, these things are very customizable, they're just not customizable to become what I want.
E does provide KDE hint support (which I have turned off) and GNOME hint support (which you can't turn off and I wouldn't if I could.)
The truth is, the UIs of KDE and GNOME were designed to mimick Windows. Read the websites. They were created to provide standard GUIs for Unix, and their interfaces were designed so people used to Windows would be comfortable with them. (CDE also mimicks Windows, remember? It was designed so that Unix and Motif could catch up to Win3.x)
I don't like having to learn a new interface any more than you do. The first time I used the GIMP I was totally lost (I had never used Photoshop or anything). But I also don't like the UI choices the GNOME and KDE teams made, and I don't like the UIs. They are simply too different to be customized into the type of UI I want. I don't like them. But that doesn't change the fact that they were designed to act like Windows. My opinion didn't create that fact. I'm sorry if you think it did.
It's nice to see that there are some people who haven't forgotten the reality of security technology: it's only secure until somebody beats its. Triple-DES (3DES) has been around long enough that I can trust it to keep my data safe. When I have to change, I will, but not before, and not to a new, untested algorithm.
It's also important to remember than algoritms avalible for peer review are typically stronger because more brains have tried and failed to find holes in them.
Blowfish is less secure than other encryption utilities. No encryption scheme is perfect, and quite a few have been broken recently, but I'd still prefer to use something a little less likely to be cracked. PGP is better, but not nearly perfect. At least the Blowfish developers don't try to hide its flaws like PGP does. I remember a brute force crack being avalible on one of those guys' pages.
Don't get me wrong; Blowfish is great. But the way I work, when I get something that needs encryption, I need it to stay encrypted.
Would it be legal to study QPLed code and then create a non-QPLed version of it.
This is a very important question that would have to be cleared up for anyone who worked on Harmony. The answer is that it depends on how one does it. If you copy code out of QT or create code that is too close to it, you could get in trouble. But if you just learn how it works and then write a better, faster, and free software version that is compatible, there isn't much that they can do.
If you're very careful to write original code and just not steal from QT, you could use the QT code as a guide.
Which leads me to believe that it probably isn't as easy as that, or it would have already been done. If Harmony hackers could use QT sources then why did the project die? After all, it should have only gotten easier.
Three major reasons:
KDE didn't care. They were fine they way they were, even if they were breaking the law and the "unwritten rules of our community". Most of the team saw no reason to switch.
The users didn't care. See above. It wasn't as clear then to them exactly how wrong what KDE was doing was, but they weren't exactly in the dark, either.
Internel Problems. There may not have been flame wars between the major members of the team, but can you imagine how frustrating it was for them? Even some of those who believe were losing hope, or saw no reason to continue, or whatever. They were working on a project created to help another project that had threatened them if they continued. If people believe and support Harmony this time, we can make it work. I can't do this on my own, or I'd have code to send you. I just wish that somebody would listen and try to pick up the pieces of whatever's left of the project.
GNOME and KDE are intended for Windows users just making the switch. They mimick the Windows interface as closely as possible to easy the transition. Those that don't need that kind of this can move on to more advance wms, like Enlightenment, that can look radically different. I, too, use E and I am very happy with it.
Ulitmatly, these enviroments will help convert a lot of people. Some of them will stay there, but the ones who want to learn more about their computers will move on to other things. Not to say that GNOME isn't an advance UI. It is a very good setup, and I use it third most often after E and TWM. You can be an advanced user and use GNOME. But many will move on to something more flexible. E's menus are certainly easier to customize.
Harmony is dead, but this is a whole different scenario. We have more advantages, and KDE has less. Harmony could catch up to QT faster than QT could stay ahead of Harmony.
True enough. But it's a bad example: that was then, this is now. A lot of people would be interested in this. The community is a lot bigger than it was even two years ago.
Slashdot Mirror
Debian isn't about just getting a job done. Debian is about getting a job done right.
Thanks.
How about Chinese dissidents sending PGPed email to residents of other countries, who then post the messages on Geocities? The Chinese could access the Internet without (as much) fear of retribution if they used these kinds of intermediaries.
China is using their tool as a means of controling their people. This is like threatening to kill someone with a hammer. And they are acting on their threats in order to maintain control. This is like killing someone with said hammer. I believe that the idea that it is wrong to kill someone with a hammer is not found solely in Western ideology.
While it may be a little extreme to compare Microsoft to Red China, the point is that they don't react like this to the Internet because they think it can work for them or because they don't get it, but because they see it as a treat to their control. It's like other mediums they censor, only more powerfull.
There was an article (on Salon?) a while ago about people in other countries watching US movies and wanting to have their Miranda rights read to them, only to discover they didn't have those rights outside of the US. The Chinese government fears that the Internet will give people a way to avoid and eventually dispose of their totalitarian control.
Um... no. The Internet is the ultimate stronghold of freedom because it is impossible to violate. Governments can restrict access to data, but they can't destroy it if it's mirrored somewhere beyond their reach. If this guy had just set up an Geocities account with a fake name (possibly acting through a resident of another nation), it would have been much harder to trace it back to him. The Internet is free because you can do things like that and it suddenly becomes orders of magniture harder to stop you.
The Internet is a place where you can be as anonymous or as well-known as you want. Becuase it is so difficult to stop people who put real effort into being anonymous from exercising their natural rights, it isn't worth the effort in many cases. As long as we can do things like that and avoid things like nation-wide firewalls censoring traffic, the Internet can't help being free.
Just switch Carbon for Cocoa here. I goofed up.
First, OSX!=Carbon: MS will use the part of OSX that acts like the old MacOS, not the new APIs. From the evidence that they'll just use Cocoa, not the new Carbon APIs. This means that it wouldn't really be a port to the BSD part of OSX at all.
Second, OSX is not just another BSD. It is a whole bunch of MacOS stuff, like the Carbon and Cocoa APIs and the GUI based on Aqua (the UI) and Quartz that is built around a BSD heart, Darwin. The MS software uses these APIs and the Aqua GUI, so it would be difficult to port to a BSD system without these. One that used X, for instance.
Maybe somebody could work on a project similar to WINE that would port these APIs to non-OSX Unix systems. But in the meantime, since this isn't avalible, it probably would be about the same as porting MacOS 7-9 to Unix.
Solaris is BSD-ish because it was very heavily influenced by the work of Bill Joy, who created BSD and then went to work for Sun.
There's also a page here about Vorbis and one about Ogg in general.
Just download this file and compare the same file encoded with Vorbis to an MP3 and find out for yourself if you want numbers. Remember to test with a varity of files; every codec has strengths and weaknesses, though these should be basically similar.
- i386
- sparc
- mvme68k
- amiga
- mac68k
- hp300
- pmax
- sun3
NetBSD is avalible on the following platforms:- alpha
- amiga
- arc
- arm26
- arm32
- atari
- bebox
- cobalt
- hp300
- hpcmips
- i386
- luna68k
- mac68k
- macppc
- mvme68k
- news68k
- newsmips
- next68k
- ofppc
- pc532
- pmax
- prep
- sh3
- sparc
- sparc64
- sun3
- vax
- x68k
NetBSD is avalible on a few more, but non-i386/Alpha platforms who are going for security are probably OpenBSD's future if they allow FreeBSD to catch up. I didn't think of that.In a lot of cases, ports follow up major releases. The primary architecture is done first, and others are added a few days later of whatever. Probably all we have to do is wait a bit.
If this continues, no, OpenBSD will have no significant advantages over FreeBSD. But at this point, FreeBSD is not as heavily audited, so it is less efficient, and most but not all of the export restrictions have been lifted. OpenBSD has many strong points left, although the price isn't one of them.
My ideal X setup, the one I use most often, is E 1600x1200x32 with a modified Brushed Metal theme. (It looks less Windowish). I can use the apps I like without the task bar that I don't like. I actually like the GNOME consistent interface overall (a few frustrating things, but every UI has those), whatever this comment may have lead you to believe.
So before you get the wrong idea, remember that I was trying to answer a question, not argue against GNOME and KDE. Sorry if it looked like I was coming out against a standardized desktop; all I'm saying is that they do serve a purpose (remember that this guy wanted that purpose explained) they do provide a standardized UI (like most of GNOME's app's UI, don't care for KDE's), and they do act like Windows.
The goals of these two projects are very similar goals: (I'm quoting now) "fill the need for an easy to use desktop for Unix workstations, similar to the desktop environments found under the MacOS or Window95/NT."
Other people have said that I'm against consitancy; I'm not. I just don't want the consistency that these two offer. The GTK-type interfaces used by GNOME are something I like, but they're probably the only part of GNOME's interface that I really like using. All I meant was that these projects are trying to provide standarized desktops, and one of their goals is to look like Windows to help users switch. That's one of their main goals, actually: user friendlyness, especially for users new to Linux. Look at some of the stuff RMS has written about GNOME.
I consider Blowfish fairly insecure compaired to other encryption utilities. It's an opinion. I brought up PGP because the algorithms it uses are more secure. Blowfish is safe to trust with you data, but I just don't like to.
I've used TWM with GNOME, and believe me, you cannnot get "as advanced as you want". GMC doesn't take kindly to being used with TWM, which does things like put title bars on every single icon. You have to use a GNOME-compliant WM or else things won't work so well. GNOME will give you warning messages and stuff, and it'll act wierd.
And those widgets should not be in the "OS proper," by which I take it you mean the kernel (You couldn't possibly mean a distro, because they are already in those). The expandibility of Linux through shared libraries the user can choose not to install is one of its advantages over Windows. If you plan to only use Win32 applications, you can't choose not to install the Win16 stuff.
I don't think that integration is for newbies, I just think that GNOME imitates Windows too closely (though it's not nearly as bad as KDE.)
Integration is fine, just give me options along with it. When ever I use GNOME, I am frustrated by all of the little things it does, the clumsy applets, etc (that's a personal opinion about how the applets work, not a comment about any of their technial attributes. But E's pager has the GNOME one beat.) As for consitency, it's fine. I like to have a consistent interface for apps. I the one used by GTK apps is actually pretty good, even though a few elements of it are frustrating.
E was never used as the WM for GNOME. GNOME let you pick a WM; E was the default. But E confused too many GNOME users because of the duplicated functionality (E's menus for instance, which I like, and GNOME's task bar, which I don't like)
You can get work done in GNOME. But my personal preference is to not get work done in GNOME, because when I try, I get frustrated by it.
Most of this applies to KDE: I don't like the browser and I don't like KDE's task bar. Yes, these things are very customizable, they're just not customizable to become what I want.
E does provide KDE hint support (which I have turned off) and GNOME hint support (which you can't turn off and I wouldn't if I could.)
The truth is, the UIs of KDE and GNOME were designed to mimick Windows. Read the websites. They were created to provide standard GUIs for Unix, and their interfaces were designed so people used to Windows would be comfortable with them. (CDE also mimicks Windows, remember? It was designed so that Unix and Motif could catch up to Win3.x)
I don't like having to learn a new interface any more than you do. The first time I used the GIMP I was totally lost (I had never used Photoshop or anything). But I also don't like the UI choices the GNOME and KDE teams made, and I don't like the UIs. They are simply too different to be customized into the type of UI I want. I don't like them. But that doesn't change the fact that they were designed to act like Windows. My opinion didn't create that fact. I'm sorry if you think it did.
It's also important to remember than algoritms avalible for peer review are typically stronger because more brains have tried and failed to find holes in them.
Don't get me wrong; Blowfish is great. But the way I work, when I get something that needs encryption, I need it to stay encrypted.
This is a very important question that would have to be cleared up for anyone who worked on Harmony. The answer is that it depends on how one does it. If you copy code out of QT or create code that is too close to it, you could get in trouble. But if you just learn how it works and then write a better, faster, and free software version that is compatible, there isn't much that they can do.
If you're very careful to write original code and just not steal from QT, you could use the QT code as a guide.
Which leads me to believe that it probably isn't as easy as that, or it would have already been done. If Harmony hackers could use QT sources then why did the project die? After all, it should have only gotten easier.
Three major reasons:
Ulitmatly, these enviroments will help convert a lot of people. Some of them will stay there, but the ones who want to learn more about their computers will move on to other things. Not to say that GNOME isn't an advance UI. It is a very good setup, and I use it third most often after E and TWM. You can be an advanced user and use GNOME. But many will move on to something more flexible. E's menus are certainly easier to customize.
Harmony is dead, but this is a whole different scenario. We have more advantages, and KDE has less. Harmony could catch up to QT faster than QT could stay ahead of Harmony.
Besides, we've got QT source.