Linux FUD is a misnommer...
1,000 fanatics screamming "The world is flat" come off as 1,000 fanatics...
A heavly respected top scientific org says the world is flat the world takes hammers to globes.
FUD comes from a central source.. carefully planned marketting lies...
Edison says Teslas AC current could kill.. FUD.. DC current is no less safe...
A bunch of people belive TVs are watching them.. paranoia and of no real consern..
Westing House had a real fight to get AC current as our electrical standard... but TV rolled over radio like it was nothing...
People know better than to believe paranoia and fear mongering... People just don't realise FUD is no diffrent...
Microsoft can not be trusted to be honnest about compeating products... Linux advocates can not be trusted to treat Microsoft fairly..
Irronicly I'd have to say the comment I'm replying to is accually in the dishonnest cattagory.. not FUD.. but more the Linux kind of disinformation.. just aimmed AT Linux.. and the public allready has a pritty good BS filter when it comes to disinformation from the grass roots/personal level.. it's the corprate disinformation that people need to become aware of...
On that... this is why I don't think lawsutes and the DoJ stuff is really a good idea...
the public need to wake up and make this change themselfs..
I don't belive Microsoft one bit... They are vertually a monopoly...
But they can be broken.. they are not enternal..
and it dosn't take the DoJ to do it...
We have long known Linux was a threat to Microsoft.. they however prefered to ignore us... Pretend we don't exist... discurrage us from advocacy and paint us as extreamists.. some times calling us "Ludites" while saying Linux CAN NOT be installed by anyone but computer experts... Clear conflicts unless they believe they believe in technicly expert ludites...
On that.. often crys of Linux FUD I find far to often is FUD itself..
Example... "Linux is easy to use" - This is Linux FUD... right? No.. "Easy to use" isn't a technical term it's plain english and it means just that...
"But all those obscure commands" -- Dosn't make one bit of diffrence..
It's easy to rember what "ls" dose.. and all the Unix commands are like that.. simple easy to type.. easy to remember..
Unix just has SO MANY of thies simple easy to rember commands that it takes a commitment of time to learn enough to make Unix useful..
In short Linux (and Unix) is easy to use.. and saying so isn't FUD...
Confusing the diffrence between "Easy to use" and "user friendly" is FUD...
and thats what is happening when people say Linux is NOT "Easy to use"
This is ONE example...
"Linux isn't secure" or "Linux isn't reliable" again.. "Secure" and "reliable" are found in the dictionary.. trying to make them into technical terms just so Linux dosn't conform to them is FUD..
Linux isn't "Enterpise"... a very high standard of security and reliability...
But Linux need only conform to the LOWEST standard of "secure" or "reliable" to be called such.. It needs to conform to the highest standard to be called "Enterprise"..
Linux is secure... My sister can't break in... It isn't Enterprise.. A "31337 hax0r do0dz" could "0wnz" my system if I'm lazy...
But if I work at it I could secure anything and nobody short of God could break in... and I'm really douptfull about gods chances...
Enterprise is a reasonbly high standard for busness quality high end servers. In that environment the software is trusted to do the job with a minimal effort from the people in charg. Linux dosn't do that.. It takes a significant effort..
Anyway.... Thats Linux FUD...
Even when Linux supporters are wrong... It's not FUD... Jooze D Tova Linux advocate really dosn't have much clout... "Felinoid" who cares about him... But when the Ballmer speaks people lissen...
CBS, Time Mag and CNN have more clout than "Felinoid" or "31337 hax0r do0dz"
Wait a second here...
Linux is the SECOND biggest threat to Microsoft not the TOP threat..
Linuxes strongholds are servers and imbeded computers.. Microsofts stronghold is desktops and workstations..
Linux is expanding into desktops but at a snales pace..
Microsofts break into servers is stagnet due to Linux and Sun and they are dead in the imbeded/PDA market due to Palm and Linux..
But Linux is hardly a sereous threat to Microsofts desktop market...
Basicly Linux is Microsofts second strongest compeditor..
Apples stronghold is in the desktop and aims an servers... this makes Apple Microsofts number one compeditor..
Linux is develuping a sereous stronghold in the imbeded market.. Microsoft was pushed out long before Linux entered.. so Linux is just the last nail in the CE coffen..
Microsoft needs to fake a strong compeditor in the desktop market.. they fake us...
It's believable to the antitrust judges who don't walk into the stores and see nothing but Windows PCs..
Should we stop Microsoft? No.... not this time...
Say "Hay CompUSA see Microsoft says we are the top compeditor.. so stock up some Rebel computers and some units from VA and Penguin... get some pure Linux boxen in here so you can keep up... You don't your compeditors will.. chop chop"
Say "Microsoft knows and Microsoft speaks.. so heed the words and make your software for Linux"
Some times you don't fight the monster...
But be tactful.. know this Apple whos getting hurt so be prepaired to defend Apple as viable platform...
> 1. How would it be specifically tied to the PC? (There was some very vague speculation, but nothing concrete)
Mistake.. it's tied to OS not hardware..
Basicly when you get a new machine there is new hardware, new drivers... Try getting Voodoo 3 drivers for Windows 3.11...
So eventually your old Windows 98 won't run the latest video cards etc.. [This happends in Linux also.. Try using a Voodoo 3 on Linux 1.x kernel]
Eventually you MUST upgrade the OS...
In short it's tied to OS.. Os is tied to hardware.. But it's not even remotely as bad as stated..
>2. What happens if the computer doesn't have an internet connection? (I don't think MS will completely ignore this)
Windows 95.. What happends if the user is still using a 286? Dosn't have a VGA?
At the time Windows 95 was released XTs and 286s were still being produced... and systems were still sold with Herc Mono displays...
No Internet connection? Well to bad..
Microsoft is aimming at Internet delivery of software...
On the other hand the software may unlock automaticly with no network connectivity... software piracy isn't much of a threat when there is no net...
> 3. Why would they make it so complicated and time consuming, when I (a lowly CS student) can think of better and easier ways to do something similar. (While they have an entire marketing department, and last time I checked they don't ignore the obvious, especially when it comes to money)
They are pritty good at ignoring the obveous...
Your a collage student.. why worry about what you could create when Microsoft can just fud you into oblivion....
Thats the addadtue they take and have yet to realise it's the wrong addatude...
> Microsoft is here today and will be tomorrow. Deal or don't use thier stuff.
Any company can be crushed... Microsoft is resillent.. However Microsoft is also the main target of every marketting nuke and every antitrust lawyer who wants to make a name for himself.
Nobody is holding a gun to your head? Really?
Reality you can do anything with anything... you don't "have to" use Windows UNLESS someone is holding that mediphorical gun...
Considering the price of some software thies days (Into the thousands) [and I rember when $20 was expensive...] it seems reasonable to assume people won't upgrade unless forced..
Microsoft cupples the two prong attack of simi-reasonable pricing with forced updates...
($200 and less.. and I'm still having flashbacks to "This is ?$25?" when my mother was looking at a powerful software pacage I wanted...)...
This keeps Microsoft in busness selling software to the masses...
A forced single path upgrade..
How about a ZERO upgrade path... woohooo.. No upgrade path whatsoever.. Most users would do this if given half a chance..
And it haults piracy and thats a good thing.. I'm all for that... commertal software isn't free and giving it away for free hurts both commertal software [that lives/dies on proffits] and free software [that lives/dies on popularity]..
I'm all for anything that makes non-free software stay non-free and and makes free software the ONLY option when you don't want to spend money..
So.. good job.. yes... forced zero upgrade path is good for me...
Then when upgrades become absolutly nessisary... You have no choice but to dump and start over... Linux, BSD, BeOs and MacOs have a fair shot...
CCO Central Command Officer:)
This is the guy who works with all the other C?Os so that the CEO dosn't have to spend all his day in meetings with all the C?Os
CBO... Centeral BS Officer... In charg of lying to the employees.
CMO Mimic This is the guy who repeates what the CEO said right after he said it to the people he did not say it to but were simply in the room at the time and did hear it...
CBO This is the guy in charg of the bubble gum.. most busnesses don't have one of thies.. His job is to make the secretarys happy.. bring them coffie and bubble gum...
As you'll note the stereotypical secretary chewing bubblegum dosn't seem to exist unles you have a CBO...
Everyone should report to the CFO:)
[This should be dubblely true of "DotComs" who tend to spend thousands on BS when they havn't made a dime]
[Many allready gave sereous answers so I'm giving the silly ones]
CTO reports to God CIO reports to Satan:) CEO reports to the stock holders who report to the Illuminati...
The CFO reports to RMS..
(I'm just wondering how many CFOs and CPAs prefer free software just for a TCO issue?)
>In the interview Linus sounds like a stuck up little junior high prick
Thats your preception alone.. To me the reporter comes off a bit umm disintrested.. In the end my impression is ZD just asigned a random reporter and he asked some kiss up questions and expected some kiss up replys.. Linus dosn't play that...
>talking back to the interviewer, and having a massive ego.
You get asked the same 3 questions by 1,000 droolly reporters and see if you don't a. Start having a massive ego, b. Don't start talking back...
It's accually remarkable how Linus hasn't let his ego explode...
> This really makes Linus look back,
(He means "look bad"... I'm a lot worse than this guy when it comes to this sort of thing...)
In my view Linus is in a space where it dosn't matter what he says...
If he says "My ship is full of eels" some will find something insightful and prase worthy and others will dream up some mental illness and attribute the comment to it..
>oh yea cause there are so many out there. The only two C compilers are gcc and borland.
Accually there are sevral... Some Dos shareware.. and three forks of GCC (that I am aware of)..
Then there is the BSD C compiler...
But focusing only on Unix compilers.. Get an account on a Sun Sparc or some other liccensed Unix system and run a clean GCC compile on that... then do it again as a cross compile...
The real issue for me isn't "We could" yeah yeah yeah... will we... Most likely no...
The source code being available means we know Linus (and his people) didn't insert a trojen.. Right?
Well no we don't becouse as a rule we don't review the code...
However we can trust that Linus probably didn't becouse he couldn't cover it up if someone bothered to look.
But if he ever got cocky... There are people who try to rob the store in broud daylight AFTER showing ID...
What am I getting at?
Well in the past we thought it was a reasonable assmption that a commertal pacage didn't contain a back door.. we know better now... It's just to easy to cover up...
We do know that it's reasonably likely there are no trojens in Linux... not 100%... only 99.44% sure... the rest is that little uncertenly that RMS may have inserted a trojen from the start.. or Sun slipped something into Solarus to infect GCC... or that RedHat is shipping infected binarys...
Or a massive conspericy between AT&T, RedHat, Sun, IBM, the FSF, the NIS, the Illuminati, NSI, CmdrTacos GF, and my pet dog...
There are things you could do to be absolutly safe..
Well accually no... not even that.. becouse if you really want to be paranoid.. we could be in a matrix.. I mean a trojen in the laws of phisics isn't something you can decompile... Enter "The Matrix"
Anyway... it's a lot less likely...
But if Intel wanted to they could just infect the CPU with something like User ID...
Linus is right.. nothing earth shattering... just booring dull zzzzzz....
This being the benifit of having more than one compiler and nither compiler made by the kernel author...
[The scary part however is the main compiler people use.. GCC.. is effectively in the hands of RedHat...]
Are there any decompilers for Linux that might be used to catch this sort of thing?
What you do is have this program send you e-mail reports on the systems status every month.
It's a basic report.. Just enough so you know if you need to update passwords etc...
If the e-mail bounces.. wait a week and send it again...
If it bounces again... Run the other script....
You get fired... are never told... and continue working for months..
Let's enhance this horror story...
Lets say every few weeks the computer keeps nocking the e-mail out... a co-worker is a prick and keeps disabling the e-mail.. So you get the Sysadmin to install a script that checks and reinstalls a script that runs once every 6 hours to check and see if your e-mail is valid.. if not reinstall... (Don't do this right away or the prick employee will just disable the script)
Now... say the card reader is flaky.. no accually the card reader is fine your card is fragged.. HR won't issue you a new one.. so a friend let's you in every day...
The company cell phone is a kludge.. you gave it back to HR and got your own.. the company dosn't like it but screw them... You want personal phone calls anyway and they won't let you... (Reasonable if they are footing the bill)
You walk in and the card crashes and your e-mail is disabled all at the same time.. Big deal.. this happend before..
Of course given this horror story what you do is you write a newspaper artical.. make some money... and get a better job...
I belive Sun is donating hardware to schools...
(A good think IMHO) this should be the first place for non-proffits to turn given the quality of Sun hardware..
>Sun in particular, seems to want to be the Anit-Microsoft.
They may want to be but they aren't.. (They certenly aren't PRO Microsoft but as far as Anti-MS they end up being all talk)
Sun aims at the high end while attacking Linux and not taking Apple sereously...
the Macintosh and Linux are the two systems best positioned to compeate with Microsoft...
Suns fear of Linux has to do with Linux compeating on the high end. For a long time Linux relyed on Suns hardware for the high end. IBM probably wouldn't have put any risk into supporting Linux had Sun not come out so harshly against same..
Wordprocessors are not very hard to learn to start with...
Also the Microsoft Word they will be using when they enter the marketplace won't be the same Word they'll use when they enter the marketplace..
Thats assuming Word remains populare that long...
I rember in high school asking myself why they were teaching me Wordstar.. Sure it's populare but it won't be forever...
By the time I was in the market for a wordprocessor myself Wordstar 2000 was pritty diffrent from the wordprocessor "I" learnned...
Thankfully I also learnned sevral other wordprocessors that gave me a better understanding of the fundementals of wordprocessing....
Maybe "Word" isn't the wrong answer... The wrong answer is.. one wordprocessor.... Teach Word and kword and.. and... and.. then when they sit infront of MsWord 2025 It'll all make sence...
Or maybe they'll be sitting infront of AmigaWord 2025...
>Redmond have an answer. The answer is Get a job hippy.
Assumming every objector is a jobless hippy instead of realising a good number of them are high end admin is part of why Microsoft is throwing out FUD and insults instead of addressing users issues
This would be a long overdue replacement to Svga-lib.
The one (and only) virus for Linux was made posable in part becouse of svga-libs need for super user access... (and users swapping binarys instead of source code)
The other problem with svga-lib is it's just an interface into existing svga cards... This is useless on platforms that don't use the obsolet video chipset...
But console graphics are the key to making linux games run faster... X11 uses a lot of memory and runs slow.. it has support for stuff that games don't need.. Window managers have stuff games don't need.. Strip all that away and the computer is many times faster..
Something like GTK+ would use your PC 2D rendering card directly instead of using it's internal VGA emulation.. It would allow you to run with less memory and give more speed to your games..
Also GTK+ has the added benifit of being GTK.. It would be pritty easy to port GTK code to GTK plus (and visa versa).. It should work equally well the Mac as it dose on the PC.....
While svga-lib dosn't have that requirement to give your games superuser access.. it's still long overdue for a replacment...
"We aren't knowingly making money off of spam"
This dosn't mean "We are making money from spam we just fain ignorence" but "We never bothered to learn what spam is"
Thats the problem with a lot of busnesses. Our luck that spam simply dosn't occure to most people when they first start doing busness on the net. When they try to addapt the old postal junk mail anolog they print up post cards and mail them out. I rember when TI did this.. The first postal junk mail I ever got reguarding the Internet,... I was kinda supprised... But it wasn't the last junk mail.
Still when someone new to the Internet dose his homework often Spam supplyers strike.. They latch on and teach the ways of spam... "Ohh ignore those techno dweeb hippys... they aren't up with the cutting edge..." or some such nonsence... By the time they run accrost matereal against spam they think it's all nonsence and BS.
Then they spam.. lost all credability.. lose money.. and drop off the face of the net never to return again...
Then there is the other side of this...
"Ignorence is bliss" the reply to the comment..
We've come to expect Spammers to lie.. but for many spam hunters this has lead to a gult before innocents addatude..
Just becouse a person says "We aren't knowingly proffiting from spam" dosn't mean "We fain ignorence and spam anyway" they could simply be saying "Look we aren't sending spam.. someone COULD be spamming in our name.. but it's not us" For someone new to spam it seems a reasonable assumption... "Fans" do all kinds of nutty things to premote someone they like.
(Linux advocates are a good example.. some are really painfully annoying...)
At times it's a matter of chilling out...
For a while it was a spammers tactic to clame support (in some way) from a larger company. AoL and Microsoft got hit with this and for a long time (Becouse AoL and Microsoft are "Bad guys" in other areas) people belived it..
But realisticly AoL and Microsoft have allways been against spam... AoL sued CyberPromo on occasion and was sued by CyberPromo... Bill Gates wrote an artical trashing spam as a total waist of time.
So basicly when dealling with a potental spammer two rules apply.. Spammers lie convencingly and innocent victoms tell the truth unconvencingly...
Some times it takes work to find the guilty party.. some times it just takes work confermming the person you have in your claws really is as gulty as you think he is...
You can't use simple rules to base your judgment.. Spammers will just use this against you... They love it when you come down on an innocent victom... "See.. they just resisting change..." and they also love it when you pass over an gulty party.. "Encorcement..."
In the end I don't believe in letting them go easy I also don't believe in being trigger happy...
>I don't *like* spam, and I don't think I should be *sent* spam, but the "time to download" argument doesn't hold water.
Kinda...
I'm affrade the "Americans pay for it too" argument isn't reasonable..
UK has this small problem of a phone monopoly who is also an ISP and wanabe Internet monopoly.. (Not yet but not for lack of trying)
But some Americans DO pay for time on-line or bandwith... charges for calling an ISP long distence mean spam costs money..
Also we don't allways pay directly.. We all pay for spam in the form of disk space... Your ISP pays for disk space on the bulkload so the added spam dosn't need to be added in..
Same for desktop users.. larg hard disk is used for e-mail, data files, porn, etc.. You really don't notice becouse the spam is really less noticable than the disk space used by your web browser cache. But when using a PCS or a Palm pilot your storage is considerably smaller. Spam could mean buying a unit with more memory or buying an upgrade to what you have.
Also some of us use free services... my free e-mail accounts grant me 10 megs to 30 megs of disk space to store e-mail.
Also spammers may seem rude but at least they try to matain a one time contact rule. Some spammers won't do that. The worst spam I got came from CyberPromo itself.. once every 30 min.. every day.. around the clock... That nonsence adds up..
While thats not happening anymore... Spam means BBS sysops can't afford a Usenet feed (and most ISPs won't provide same)... the FidoNet gateway is (basicly) shut down... etc... We may not be paying in dollers but we most certenly pay in lossed connectivity.. lost time.. and lost posabilitys...
This is quite similer to computer shops who refuse to sell anything that dosn't have Windows preinstalled.
It's perfictly legal but not perfictly ok...
I'm a little iffy on whos rights are being stepped on.. Yahoo isn't exactly changing policys and they aren't the only on-line auction site..
I set this in the catagory of unusual/strange busness demands...
Someone posted this is akin to Toys R Us refusing to carry Debby Dose Dallis.. It's not reasonable to assume Toys R Us would ever carry such an item..
Yahoo Auctions however is a general auctions site.. You should expect all kinds of general nicknack are there.. "In the spirit of Yahoo Auctions" as it were.. If Toys R Us should refuse to sell Legos or Dolls.. attach some politicly correct excuse.. that would be wrong.. Not illegal.. not really stepping on anyones rights.. but it's still wrong...
I want to really make this clear.. It's NOT A RIGHTS ISSUE.. It is a stupid busness practace.. but not much byond that...
As a rights issue you can allways go someplace else. As a busness issue it's stupid.. Your basicly trunning people away becouse some idiot MIGHT be offended...
The whole thing is silly.. You'll offend people just by being alive... Some people are offended by skin color.. There is no skin color that is immune to this.. Some people are offended by people who are pritty.. people who are ugly.. people whos chest is to big.. whos chest is to small.. Not enough mussles.. to many...
They'll be offneded by the car you drive... no matter what car you drive... and some by the fact that you drive at all.. and if you don't drive.. well people are offended by that too.
Here I use woden pencles to draw my art... and guess what... a long time ago me and some friends (artists) had a debate on that... One argued that you can't do an effective job with anything but woden pencles.. annother argued the environment.. a tree died for that pencle.. ever the antagonis I argued disposable macanical pencles.. plastic being non-bio-degradable.. It was a short lived argument..
I understand not wanting to be offensive and such but draw a line at sanity please...
It's not like selling Nazi artifacts is going to bring Hitler back... They are a reminder of the past... We need this history... or we shall be doomed to repeate it...
Like the racist artifacts from American history. People would rather have then stuffed away and let rot. But this is what we did.. and what we were. This is the propoganda of the past and it should be recorded and acnoladged for the sake of knowing better in the future...
Slashdot is sort of his hobby first.. Play toy second.. job third..
What would happen if Andover was bought over? It happend.. VA.. But Slashdot remains Slashdot..
What would happen if Slashdot were to cease being Slashdot?
I think the game plan is the same for all the folowing posabilitys:
If the new owners of Slashdot started dictating editorial policy, If the new owners started changing what Slashdot was, If Slashdot was tossed in the ash can and left for dead...
Taco would quit Slashdot and move on with his life..
Why?
Becouse Slashdot is hobby first... if that were to ever change... Slashdot is dead.. and Taco can afford to dump it and do something else.
Taco is also part of BSI... Block Stackers Intergalatic.. If Slashdot pukes he pulls back to BSI..
Also people please quit quoting the stupid stock reports... Most of the investors still don't quite know how to take the Linux market and are reacting to silly things. Problems with Redhat don't effect VA Linux much...
Well maybe not yet...
His two stated reasons for having Windows is Diablo II and playing DVDs...
"Once the audio and video sync right I'm blowin away the Windows partition on my hard disk" to be quickly reminded of Diablo II located on same....
Well now all Taco has to do is focus on that DVD player for Linux... Becouse his Carricters been Hax0red... to death...
Slashdot Mirror
Linux FUD is a misnommer...
1,000 fanatics screamming "The world is flat" come off as 1,000 fanatics...
A heavly respected top scientific org says the world is flat the world takes hammers to globes.
FUD comes from a central source.. carefully planned marketting lies...
Edison says Teslas AC current could kill.. FUD.. DC current is no less safe...
A bunch of people belive TVs are watching them.. paranoia and of no real consern..
Westing House had a real fight to get AC current as our electrical standard... but TV rolled over radio like it was nothing...
People know better than to believe paranoia and fear mongering... People just don't realise FUD is no diffrent...
Microsoft can not be trusted to be honnest about compeating products... Linux advocates can not be trusted to treat Microsoft fairly..
Irronicly I'd have to say the comment I'm replying to is accually in the dishonnest cattagory.. not FUD.. but more the Linux kind of disinformation.. just aimmed AT Linux.. and the public allready has a pritty good BS filter when it comes to disinformation from the grass roots/personal level.. it's the corprate disinformation that people need to become aware of...
On that... this is why I don't think lawsutes and the DoJ stuff is really a good idea...
the public need to wake up and make this change themselfs..
I don't belive Microsoft one bit... They are vertually a monopoly...
But they can be broken.. they are not enternal..
and it dosn't take the DoJ to do it...
We have long known Linux was a threat to Microsoft.. they however prefered to ignore us... Pretend we don't exist... discurrage us from advocacy and paint us as extreamists.. some times calling us "Ludites" while saying Linux CAN NOT be installed by anyone but computer experts... Clear conflicts unless they believe they believe in technicly expert ludites...
On that.. often crys of Linux FUD I find far to often is FUD itself..
Example... "Linux is easy to use" - This is Linux FUD... right? No.. "Easy to use" isn't a technical term it's plain english and it means just that...
"But all those obscure commands" -- Dosn't make one bit of diffrence..
It's easy to rember what "ls" dose.. and all the Unix commands are like that.. simple easy to type.. easy to remember..
Unix just has SO MANY of thies simple easy to rember commands that it takes a commitment of time to learn enough to make Unix useful..
In short Linux (and Unix) is easy to use.. and saying so isn't FUD...
Confusing the diffrence between "Easy to use" and "user friendly" is FUD...
and thats what is happening when people say Linux is NOT "Easy to use"
This is ONE example...
"Linux isn't secure" or "Linux isn't reliable" again.. "Secure" and "reliable" are found in the dictionary.. trying to make them into technical terms just so Linux dosn't conform to them is FUD..
Linux isn't "Enterpise"... a very high standard of security and reliability...
But Linux need only conform to the LOWEST standard of "secure" or "reliable" to be called such.. It needs to conform to the highest standard to be called "Enterprise"..
Linux is secure... My sister can't break in... It isn't Enterprise.. A "31337 hax0r do0dz" could "0wnz" my system if I'm lazy...
But if I work at it I could secure anything and nobody short of God could break in... and I'm really douptfull about gods chances...
Enterprise is a reasonbly high standard for busness quality high end servers. In that environment the software is trusted to do the job with a minimal effort from the people in charg. Linux dosn't do that.. It takes a significant effort..
Anyway.... Thats Linux FUD...
Even when Linux supporters are wrong... It's not FUD... Jooze D Tova Linux advocate really dosn't have much clout... "Felinoid" who cares about him... But when the Ballmer speaks people lissen...
CBS, Time Mag and CNN have more clout than "Felinoid" or "31337 hax0r do0dz"
Wait a second here...
Linux is the SECOND biggest threat to Microsoft not the TOP threat..
Linuxes strongholds are servers and imbeded computers.. Microsofts stronghold is desktops and workstations..
Linux is expanding into desktops but at a snales pace..
Microsofts break into servers is stagnet due to Linux and Sun and they are dead in the imbeded/PDA market due to Palm and Linux..
But Linux is hardly a sereous threat to Microsofts desktop market...
Basicly Linux is Microsofts second strongest compeditor..
Apples stronghold is in the desktop and aims an servers... this makes Apple Microsofts number one compeditor..
Linux is develuping a sereous stronghold in the imbeded market.. Microsoft was pushed out long before Linux entered.. so Linux is just the last nail in the CE coffen..
Microsoft needs to fake a strong compeditor in the desktop market.. they fake us...
It's believable to the antitrust judges who don't walk into the stores and see nothing but Windows PCs..
Should we stop Microsoft? No.... not this time...
Say "Hay CompUSA see Microsoft says we are the top compeditor.. so stock up some Rebel computers and some units from VA and Penguin... get some pure Linux boxen in here so you can keep up... You don't your compeditors will.. chop chop"
Say "Microsoft knows and Microsoft speaks.. so heed the words and make your software for Linux"
Some times you don't fight the monster...
But be tactful.. know this Apple whos getting hurt so be prepaired to defend Apple as viable platform...
> 1. How would it be specifically tied to the PC? (There was some very vague speculation, but nothing concrete)
Mistake.. it's tied to OS not hardware..
Basicly when you get a new machine there is new hardware, new drivers... Try getting Voodoo 3 drivers for Windows 3.11...
So eventually your old Windows 98 won't run the latest video cards etc.. [This happends in Linux also.. Try using a Voodoo 3 on Linux 1.x kernel]
Eventually you MUST upgrade the OS...
In short it's tied to OS.. Os is tied to hardware.. But it's not even remotely as bad as stated..
>2. What happens if the computer doesn't have an internet connection? (I don't think MS will completely ignore this)
Windows 95.. What happends if the user is still using a 286? Dosn't have a VGA?
At the time Windows 95 was released XTs and 286s were still being produced... and systems were still sold with Herc Mono displays...
No Internet connection? Well to bad..
Microsoft is aimming at Internet delivery of software...
On the other hand the software may unlock automaticly with no network connectivity... software piracy isn't much of a threat when there is no net...
> 3. Why would they make it so complicated and time consuming, when I (a lowly CS student) can think of better and easier ways to do something similar. (While they have an entire marketing department, and last time I checked they don't ignore the obvious, especially when it comes to money)
They are pritty good at ignoring the obveous...
Your a collage student.. why worry about what you could create when Microsoft can just fud you into oblivion....
Thats the addadtue they take and have yet to realise it's the wrong addatude...
> Microsoft is here today and will be tomorrow. Deal or don't use thier stuff.
Any company can be crushed... Microsoft is resillent.. However Microsoft is also the main target of every marketting nuke and every antitrust lawyer who wants to make a name for himself.
> I'm still using 95 (when I have to).
Nobody is holding a gun to your head? Really?
Reality you can do anything with anything... you don't "have to" use Windows UNLESS someone is holding that mediphorical gun...
Considering the price of some software thies days (Into the thousands) [and I rember when $20 was expensive...] it seems reasonable to assume people won't upgrade unless forced..
Microsoft cupples the two prong attack of simi-reasonable pricing with forced updates...
($200 and less.. and I'm still having flashbacks to "This is ?$25?" when my mother was looking at a powerful software pacage I wanted...)...
This keeps Microsoft in busness selling software to the masses...
A forced single path upgrade..
How about a ZERO upgrade path... woohooo.. No upgrade path whatsoever.. Most users would do this if given half a chance..
And it haults piracy and thats a good thing.. I'm all for that... commertal software isn't free and giving it away for free hurts both commertal software [that lives/dies on proffits] and free software [that lives/dies on popularity]..
I'm all for anything that makes non-free software stay non-free and and makes free software the ONLY option when you don't want to spend money..
So.. good job.. yes... forced zero upgrade path is good for me...
Then when upgrades become absolutly nessisary... You have no choice but to dump and start over... Linux, BSD, BeOs and MacOs have a fair shot...
CCO Central Command Officer :)
This is the guy who works with all the other C?Os so that the CEO dosn't have to spend all his day in meetings with all the C?Os
CBO... Centeral BS Officer... In charg of lying to the employees.
CMO Mimic This is the guy who repeates what the CEO said right after he said it to the people he did not say it to but were simply in the room at the time and did hear it...
CBO This is the guy in charg of the bubble gum.. most busnesses don't have one of thies.. His job is to make the secretarys happy.. bring them coffie and bubble gum...
As you'll note the stereotypical secretary chewing bubblegum dosn't seem to exist unles you have a CBO...
Everyone should report to the CFO :)
:) CEO reports to the stock holders who report to the Illuminati...
[This should be dubblely true of "DotComs" who tend to spend thousands on BS when they havn't made a dime]
[Many allready gave sereous answers so I'm giving the silly ones]
CTO reports to God CIO reports to Satan
The CFO reports to RMS..
(I'm just wondering how many CFOs and CPAs prefer free software just for a TCO issue?)
>In the interview Linus sounds like a stuck up little junior high prick
Thats your preception alone.. To me the reporter comes off a bit umm disintrested.. In the end my impression is ZD just asigned a random reporter and he asked some kiss up questions and expected some kiss up replys.. Linus dosn't play that...
>talking back to the interviewer, and having a massive ego.
You get asked the same 3 questions by 1,000 droolly reporters and see if you don't a. Start having a massive ego, b. Don't start talking back...
It's accually remarkable how Linus hasn't let his ego explode...
> This really makes Linus look back,
(He means "look bad"... I'm a lot worse than this guy when it comes to this sort of thing...)
In my view Linus is in a space where it dosn't matter what he says...
If he says "My ship is full of eels" some will find something insightful and prase worthy and others will dream up some mental illness and attribute the comment to it..
>oh yea cause there are so many out there. The only two C compilers are gcc and borland.
Accually there are sevral... Some Dos shareware.. and three forks of GCC (that I am aware of)..
Then there is the BSD C compiler...
But focusing only on Unix compilers.. Get an account on a Sun Sparc or some other liccensed Unix system and run a clean GCC compile on that... then do it again as a cross compile...
The real issue for me isn't "We could" yeah yeah yeah... will we... Most likely no...
The source code being available means we know Linus (and his people) didn't insert a trojen.. Right?
Well no we don't becouse as a rule we don't review the code...
However we can trust that Linus probably didn't becouse he couldn't cover it up if someone bothered to look.
But if he ever got cocky... There are people who try to rob the store in broud daylight AFTER showing ID...
What am I getting at?
Well in the past we thought it was a reasonable assmption that a commertal pacage didn't contain a back door.. we know better now... It's just to easy to cover up...
We do know that it's reasonably likely there are no trojens in Linux... not 100%... only 99.44% sure... the rest is that little uncertenly that RMS may have inserted a trojen from the start.. or Sun slipped something into Solarus to infect GCC... or that RedHat is shipping infected binarys...
Or a massive conspericy between AT&T, RedHat, Sun, IBM, the FSF, the NIS, the Illuminati, NSI, CmdrTacos GF, and my pet dog...
There are things you could do to be absolutly safe..
Well accually no... not even that.. becouse if you really want to be paranoid.. we could be in a matrix.. I mean a trojen in the laws of phisics isn't something you can decompile... Enter "The Matrix"
Anyway... it's a lot less likely...
But if Intel wanted to they could just infect the CPU with something like User ID...
Linus is right.. nothing earth shattering... just booring dull zzzzzz....
This being the benifit of having more than one compiler and nither compiler made by the kernel author...
[The scary part however is the main compiler people use.. GCC.. is effectively in the hands of RedHat...]
Are there any decompilers for Linux that might be used to catch this sort of thing?
What you do is have this program send you e-mail reports on the systems status every month.
It's a basic report.. Just enough so you know if you need to update passwords etc...
If the e-mail bounces.. wait a week and send it again...
If it bounces again... Run the other script....
You get fired... are never told... and continue working for months..
Let's enhance this horror story...
Lets say every few weeks the computer keeps nocking the e-mail out... a co-worker is a prick and keeps disabling the e-mail.. So you get the Sysadmin to install a script that checks and reinstalls a script that runs once every 6 hours to check and see if your e-mail is valid.. if not reinstall... (Don't do this right away or the prick employee will just disable the script)
Now... say the card reader is flaky.. no accually the card reader is fine your card is fragged.. HR won't issue you a new one.. so a friend let's you in every day...
The company cell phone is a kludge.. you gave it back to HR and got your own.. the company dosn't like it but screw them... You want personal phone calls anyway and they won't let you... (Reasonable if they are footing the bill)
You walk in and the card crashes and your e-mail is disabled all at the same time.. Big deal.. this happend before..
Of course given this horror story what you do is you write a newspaper artical.. make some money... and get a better job...
(Obveously this never happend to me)
I belive Sun is donating hardware to schools...
(A good think IMHO) this should be the first place for non-proffits to turn given the quality of Sun hardware..
>Sun in particular, seems to want to be the Anit-Microsoft.
They may want to be but they aren't.. (They certenly aren't PRO Microsoft but as far as Anti-MS they end up being all talk)
Sun aims at the high end while attacking Linux and not taking Apple sereously...
the Macintosh and Linux are the two systems best positioned to compeate with Microsoft...
Suns fear of Linux has to do with Linux compeating on the high end. For a long time Linux relyed on Suns hardware for the high end. IBM probably wouldn't have put any risk into supporting Linux had Sun not come out so harshly against same..
Wordprocessors are not very hard to learn to start with...
Also the Microsoft Word they will be using when they enter the marketplace won't be the same Word they'll use when they enter the marketplace..
Thats assuming Word remains populare that long...
I rember in high school asking myself why they were teaching me Wordstar.. Sure it's populare but it won't be forever...
By the time I was in the market for a wordprocessor myself Wordstar 2000 was pritty diffrent from the wordprocessor "I" learnned...
Thankfully I also learnned sevral other wordprocessors that gave me a better understanding of the fundementals of wordprocessing....
Maybe "Word" isn't the wrong answer... The wrong answer is.. one wordprocessor.... Teach Word and kword and.. and... and.. then when they sit infront of MsWord 2025 It'll all make sence...
Or maybe they'll be sitting infront of AmigaWord 2025...
>Redmond have an answer. The answer is Get a job hippy.
Assumming every objector is a jobless hippy instead of realising a good number of them are high end admin is part of why Microsoft is throwing out FUD and insults instead of addressing users issues
GTK+ looks to me to be a console graphics libary (as GTK is an X11 interface libary)
EyeCandy is the effort of the application...
This would be a long overdue replacement to Svga-lib.
The one (and only) virus for Linux was made posable in part becouse of svga-libs need for super user access... (and users swapping binarys instead of source code)
The other problem with svga-lib is it's just an interface into existing svga cards... This is useless on platforms that don't use the obsolet video chipset...
But console graphics are the key to making linux games run faster... X11 uses a lot of memory and runs slow.. it has support for stuff that games don't need.. Window managers have stuff games don't need.. Strip all that away and the computer is many times faster..
Something like GTK+ would use your PC 2D rendering card directly instead of using it's internal VGA emulation.. It would allow you to run with less memory and give more speed to your games..
Also GTK+ has the added benifit of being GTK.. It would be pritty easy to port GTK code to GTK plus (and visa versa).. It should work equally well the Mac as it dose on the PC.....
While svga-lib dosn't have that requirement to give your games superuser access.. it's still long overdue for a replacment...
"We aren't knowingly making money off of spam"
This dosn't mean "We are making money from spam we just fain ignorence" but "We never bothered to learn what spam is"
Thats the problem with a lot of busnesses. Our luck that spam simply dosn't occure to most people when they first start doing busness on the net. When they try to addapt the old postal junk mail anolog they print up post cards and mail them out. I rember when TI did this.. The first postal junk mail I ever got reguarding the Internet,... I was kinda supprised... But it wasn't the last junk mail.
Still when someone new to the Internet dose his homework often Spam supplyers strike.. They latch on and teach the ways of spam... "Ohh ignore those techno dweeb hippys... they aren't up with the cutting edge..." or some such nonsence... By the time they run accrost matereal against spam they think it's all nonsence and BS.
Then they spam.. lost all credability.. lose money.. and drop off the face of the net never to return again...
Then there is the other side of this...
"Ignorence is bliss" the reply to the comment..
We've come to expect Spammers to lie.. but for many spam hunters this has lead to a gult before innocents addatude..
Just becouse a person says "We aren't knowingly proffiting from spam" dosn't mean "We fain ignorence and spam anyway" they could simply be saying "Look we aren't sending spam.. someone COULD be spamming in our name.. but it's not us" For someone new to spam it seems a reasonable assumption... "Fans" do all kinds of nutty things to premote someone they like.
(Linux advocates are a good example.. some are really painfully annoying...)
At times it's a matter of chilling out...
For a while it was a spammers tactic to clame support (in some way) from a larger company. AoL and Microsoft got hit with this and for a long time (Becouse AoL and Microsoft are "Bad guys" in other areas) people belived it..
But realisticly AoL and Microsoft have allways been against spam... AoL sued CyberPromo on occasion and was sued by CyberPromo... Bill Gates wrote an artical trashing spam as a total waist of time.
So basicly when dealling with a potental spammer two rules apply.. Spammers lie convencingly and innocent victoms tell the truth unconvencingly...
Some times it takes work to find the guilty party.. some times it just takes work confermming the person you have in your claws really is as gulty as you think he is...
You can't use simple rules to base your judgment.. Spammers will just use this against you... They love it when you come down on an innocent victom... "See.. they just resisting change..." and they also love it when you pass over an gulty party.. "Encorcement..."
In the end I don't believe in letting them go easy I also don't believe in being trigger happy...
>I don't *like* spam, and I don't think I should be *sent* spam, but the "time to download" argument doesn't hold water.
Kinda...
I'm affrade the "Americans pay for it too" argument isn't reasonable..
UK has this small problem of a phone monopoly who is also an ISP and wanabe Internet monopoly.. (Not yet but not for lack of trying)
But some Americans DO pay for time on-line or bandwith... charges for calling an ISP long distence mean spam costs money..
Also we don't allways pay directly.. We all pay for spam in the form of disk space... Your ISP pays for disk space on the bulkload so the added spam dosn't need to be added in..
Same for desktop users.. larg hard disk is used for e-mail, data files, porn, etc.. You really don't notice becouse the spam is really less noticable than the disk space used by your web browser cache. But when using a PCS or a Palm pilot your storage is considerably smaller. Spam could mean buying a unit with more memory or buying an upgrade to what you have.
Also some of us use free services... my free e-mail accounts grant me 10 megs to 30 megs of disk space to store e-mail.
Also spammers may seem rude but at least they try to matain a one time contact rule. Some spammers won't do that. The worst spam I got came from CyberPromo itself.. once every 30 min.. every day.. around the clock... That nonsence adds up..
While thats not happening anymore... Spam means BBS sysops can't afford a Usenet feed (and most ISPs won't provide same)... the FidoNet gateway is (basicly) shut down... etc... We may not be paying in dollers but we most certenly pay in lossed connectivity.. lost time.. and lost posabilitys...
This is quite similer to computer shops who refuse to sell anything that dosn't have Windows preinstalled.
It's perfictly legal but not perfictly ok...
I'm a little iffy on whos rights are being stepped on.. Yahoo isn't exactly changing policys and they aren't the only on-line auction site..
I set this in the catagory of unusual/strange busness demands...
Someone posted this is akin to Toys R Us refusing to carry Debby Dose Dallis.. It's not reasonable to assume Toys R Us would ever carry such an item..
Yahoo Auctions however is a general auctions site.. You should expect all kinds of general nicknack are there.. "In the spirit of Yahoo Auctions" as it were.. If Toys R Us should refuse to sell Legos or Dolls.. attach some politicly correct excuse.. that would be wrong.. Not illegal.. not really stepping on anyones rights.. but it's still wrong...
I want to really make this clear.. It's NOT A RIGHTS ISSUE.. It is a stupid busness practace.. but not much byond that...
As a rights issue you can allways go someplace else. As a busness issue it's stupid.. Your basicly trunning people away becouse some idiot MIGHT be offended...
The whole thing is silly.. You'll offend people just by being alive... Some people are offended by skin color.. There is no skin color that is immune to this.. Some people are offended by people who are pritty.. people who are ugly.. people whos chest is to big.. whos chest is to small.. Not enough mussles.. to many...
They'll be offneded by the car you drive... no matter what car you drive... and some by the fact that you drive at all.. and if you don't drive.. well people are offended by that too.
Here I use woden pencles to draw my art... and guess what... a long time ago me and some friends (artists) had a debate on that... One argued that you can't do an effective job with anything but woden pencles.. annother argued the environment.. a tree died for that pencle.. ever the antagonis I argued disposable macanical pencles.. plastic being non-bio-degradable.. It was a short lived argument..
I understand not wanting to be offensive and such but draw a line at sanity please...
It's not like selling Nazi artifacts is going to bring Hitler back... They are a reminder of the past... We need this history... or we shall be doomed to repeate it...
Like the racist artifacts from American history. People would rather have then stuffed away and let rot. But this is what we did.. and what we were. This is the propoganda of the past and it should be recorded and acnoladged for the sake of knowing better in the future...
Slashdot is sort of his hobby first.. Play toy second.. job third..
What would happen if Andover was bought over? It happend.. VA.. But Slashdot remains Slashdot..
What would happen if Slashdot were to cease being Slashdot?
I think the game plan is the same for all the folowing posabilitys:
If the new owners of Slashdot started dictating editorial policy, If the new owners started changing what Slashdot was, If Slashdot was tossed in the ash can and left for dead...
Taco would quit Slashdot and move on with his life..
Why?
Becouse Slashdot is hobby first... if that were to ever change... Slashdot is dead.. and Taco can afford to dump it and do something else.
Taco is also part of BSI... Block Stackers Intergalatic.. If Slashdot pukes he pulls back to BSI..
Also people please quit quoting the stupid stock reports... Most of the investors still don't quite know how to take the Linux market and are reacting to silly things. Problems with Redhat don't effect VA Linux much...
Well maybe not yet...
His two stated reasons for having Windows is Diablo II and playing DVDs...
"Once the audio and video sync right I'm blowin away the Windows partition on my hard disk" to be quickly reminded of Diablo II located on same....
Well now all Taco has to do is focus on that DVD player for Linux... Becouse his Carricters been Hax0red... to death...
Nope more bloated than emacs...