Regardless of whether or not it's a Free-Software system, or a leased system from Microsoft, there is the big issue of automatic upgrades.
Example:
I need to get the Monthly status report out, I log in, and go to update the report. Oops, it decided to upgrade itself last night, and there seems to be a major bug in a feature I use, or they changed how the feature worked. Now I have a stressful time figuring out how to get the report done.
Given the horrible reliability of MS apps, I really wouldn't want auto-upgrades. I had Win98, and the SmartUpdate was a disaster on several occasions. (As a warning, never try to update more than one piece of software at a time with SmartUpdate).
Actually, Darwin had stated that he highly doubted his earlier ideas, primarily due to the fossil record being oddly counter to his arguments. While there have been some minor advances in trying to find "transition" fossils, it is still a great hole in the theory. One fossil layer will include X # of species, and the next with include X+n species, but no transition fossils.
evolution is a fact, Evolution is a highly unsupported theory. Christians who argue evolution, make it very hard to argue Evolution.
If you have a good knowledge of Biology, (As my wife and a co-worker do), you should read "Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution" ISBN: 0-684-83493-6. Some extremely interesting information.
(BTW, I actually work for the company which issues ISBN's;^)
While some of your points are valid, it still doesn't mean the GPL should change. The GPL gives you the option to protect your product + source, while the others generally don't. If you are into developing software for the public good, the GPL is the best license, since it will continue to evolve and stay open. If you are out to write free-software, and don't care what happens to it, BSD and the like are fine. There is no real need for licenses to change, however you just need to be aware of certain incompatibilities.
I will agree that the Requirements Document is extremely important. It's real nice to solve a problem, but it's much better to solve the right problem. As for the design document, I generally only used a high-level document, and defined interfaces where multiple modules were to communicate, to allow for multiple programers. Also, I maintained coding standards, which included commenting standards. With all of those implemented, I haven't had any real problems debugging (especially with assert standards).
(I was a C/C++, mostly UNIX, developer for 9 years, before switching to UNIX Administration).
Exactly. While I might say that given equal skill in both UNIX/Linux and NT, you can get a UNIX box to be more stable, I will agree that it takes a lot of skill to make NT solid, which kind of defeats the primary purpose of NT. Which was to allow you to get a cheap Administrator: "Excuse me, I know you are the Janitor, but can you admin this NT box? It has a GUI". At least, that's how MS sold it to MIS Managers.
Now, given that they both need skilled Admins, and you now have most of the server-side software on Linux, and it's extremely difficult to get two NT boxes to act exactly the same, even if they are stable, what was the reason for NT?
Actually, there are only a few primary distributions (Redhat, Caldera, Debian, Suse). Most of the others start with one of those and add features or optimize for higher end CPUs (at the expense of supporting lower end CPUs at all).
Also, I recently installed all of them, and they are starting to get more compatible, not less. SuSe now has compatibility sym-links to duplicate RedHat's SysV init script system, and Caldera is getting a little less pig-headed about things too.
Even RedHat has made some changes to facilitate easier support of multiple distribs. (/var/mail,/var/spool/mail is still a sticking point, but that's relatively minor and can be fixed yourself).
Apps are not a problem, the OS is the building block of everything, and it needs to be open to allow true competition in the industry. Once a vendor has control over the OS, well, you know the story. With Linux, there are no hidden APIs, or changing for the sole purpose of breaking other Apps.
Remember, the MS moto for Dos 2.0, "2.0 won't be done, until 1-2-3 won't run.". (I might not have the right version)
I believe Closed source has a role in Applications, But not in the OS. It is too easy to get another MS, with hidden APIs and Stock-price controlled Features in the future. It's just not worth it.
If we wanted another Proprietary OS, OS/2 would be the one, it's much more flexible, and is rock-solid, and proven. Be is just an OS/2 wannabe without the stability, but with pretty graphics (A more stable Mac).
DesqView/X was a GREAT product, we used it, plus the development kit to develop X Apps without having to purchase a Sun system, or a very expensive SCO License. When we finally did get a Sun System the port was quick and relatively painless. (The only issues involved where related to 8.3 naming problems which caused duplicates in the Motif Header files).
It definately performed better than Win95 does today with native apps, and Win 3.1 ran well in it also. I will never figure out how it didn't kick some royal butt, but the same can be said for OS/2.
Ah, the damage MS has done is immeasurable. Imagine where we could be today, stable apps with more features that we WANT, instead of what Bill thinks we want.
You haven't installed any of the latest Distros have you? About the only piece missing is InstallShield(tm), but RPM works quite nicely (Now that they finally killed GLINT for GnoRPM).
The underlying OS is generally not all that important to Joe User. However, when something goes wrong, and they call their Brother/Father, or bring it to someone to fix it (BTW, most "Joe" users end up having SOMEONE fix their Windows machines for them) It's A LOT easier to fix/clean up Linux than WinXX. And you don't need to do it nearly as often.
Of course this could end up being very good for Christians. What if they allow a clone to grow, and it has a completely different personality... interesting, Genes have 0 to do with the "Id", or Soul? Very interesting.
I think there are some ethical issues, but I'm not as much against it as most Christians, since it may end up helping prove a major seperation between Soul and Body.
And yes, abortion of clones is a Bad Thing(tm), as are any others.
After LinuxExpo, I installed Debian 2.1 (Actually, debian's install was so broken it ended up not working), Caldera 2.2, RedHat 6.0, and SuSE, and with the exception of Debian (I just don't know if it does), they all let you choose your WM when you login, and they all allow you to enable XDM/KDM logins during installation.
BTW, after doing them all, for the installs, I would rate RedHat #1, SuSE #2, Caldera #3 (pretty, but buggy), installing from random unlabled floppies #4, and debian #5.
I was very happy to see RedHat install SMP support automatically.
I haven't heard many problems of 6.0, especially compared to 5.0, And I'm running on several machines (gnoRPM rules). I have not had any problems, even on crappy Compaq stuff.
The definately streamlined the install, and I also Installed SuSE, (Wanted the TNT driver, and didn't have Linux installed yet, and I'm not a RH bigot, just like it). I still prefer RH (I use E + GNOME, I use KDE under SuSE and LinuxPPC). I actually prefer GNOME to KDE now, and I've been using KDE for quite some time.
Anyway, I'll probably keep using RedHat for my main distro, because dispite the complaints I have not had any problems, which is the great thing about choice.
As for a slightly different thread about/opt. If the Distro doesn't follow the FHS, it should be considered broken, and I was glad to see that SuSE now added symlinks to make the/etc/rc.d tree compatible with RedHat's. (The FHS doesn't cement the rc.d structure).
This was a clean, good movie, if it didn't live up to your wet-dreams about it, that's your problem, Personally, I just avoided all the hype and enjoyed the movie, it was funny, and the acting was good (for the important roles, at least).
Was it a oscar winning, in-depth movie? No, but who cares what Oscar thinks? If Lucas stays true-to-form, the second will be a bit more mature, (and romantic), and the final will be darker, and more serious.
Xerox Reps have admitted that the internals of the Docu-Centres run Linux. The Big guys (DP65 and up) run Solaris Stations.
My guess is that MS threatened to make the Xerox printers run poorly unless they switched to NT on the inside.
-- Keith Moore
Christianity vs. Xianity (SatanTrek site)
on
May Ten Quickies
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· Score: 1
Much of what is said on that site is sadly true. I know that many horrific things have been done "In the name of God". However, I believe that this should not be confused with Christianity. If there was a group of Homosexuals who went out to kill all Heterosexuals, would you be so quick to mock and attack Homosexuals?
Even in the New Testament Jesus attacks the current "Religious leadership" as hypocrits. (This is actually what got him in so much trouble). Christianity, which is based on Jesus' teachings, teaches Tolerance and loving. (Hate the sin, not the sinner). It is my belief that Homosexuality is a sin. However, I have had homosexual friends. I never made any direct attacks on their lifestyles, and if asked, would simply answer: "I do not believe in your lifestyle, nor do I believe in MY right to choose your lifestyle". Jesus teaches that each person has to make thier own choice.
Let there be no mistake about it: Those who kill abortion doctors are sinners, and NOT CHRISTIANS. They are not doing ANYONE any good. On the other hand, Planned Parenthood (and other associated groups) explicately attempts to arrest parental controls away and talk teens into abortion without giving other options/choices. They are even more wrong, they are preying on the weak, and taking advantage of a bad situation.
Also, for those who threatened to Sue the site: You are really confused, The Bible explicitly tells Christians not to sue people. (I wish I could remember the verses, but alas I do not have my Thompsan-Chain(tm) Reference with me).
For those who have been ridiculed by those who call themselves Christians, for those who have been looked down on by those who call themselves Christians: I am sorry, it is wrong, Jesus loves you, and so should we.
"Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?"
Jesus replied: "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."niv Matt 22:36-40
-- Keith Moore
A for fileserver for NT????
on
NOS Crossroads
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· Score: 1
We have swapped out several NT boxes with Linux boxes (less hardware at that) to improve File serving performance.
I have a 4 way sql server that has been running for 2 years straight. I tried to experiment with linux and run q3test but it froze my os and crashed netscape multiple times after the game was run
When it comes to abusing hardware, Games are much worse than things like RDBMS's. Have you tried to run an Oracle 8.x Database on Linux on a 4 way system? I have, it is extremely stable, and FAST.
it gets its butt kicked by NT with the defualt settings according...
NT was nowhere near the default settings, they had MSCE's from MS itself help them tune it for many hours.
You may think Linux sucks, that's fine, but I have multiple Linux boxes with uptimes nearing a year (I had to upgrade above 2.0.18 due to some SMP troubles, or it may be longer). And I even have one with multiple 100mb cards on a simple P200 running a Novell -> NFS Gateway 24/7 for the past 8 months, with only 3 hours downtime. This box is used approx 16 out of every 24 hours, for heavy traffic, and has light traffic the rest of the time. The downtime was caused by a very nasty power outage. When the power came back, so did the server.
I have a LinuxPPC workstation which had a longer uptime than any NT server in our company until the Network card went south on me, and it has had some major Software upgrades before that. (No reboot required, even when swapping out the Window Manager, which is NOT tied into the OS).
I know that Linux is lacking a few things, however he was not comparing Linux with UNIX, or even Plan 9, he was comparing it to NT, which is laughable at best.
I have to agree with several of the other posters, that he is really, really annoyed that Plan 9 didn't take off. I remember when he started it, it was going to replace everything! I haven't seen an actual install of it yet for business reasons.
Is this the first response to these problems?? Isn't the legal profession the reason we have so many problems? Petty laws and stupid lawsuits. Lawyers are not the answer.
The Linux kernel is developed by multiple people, however Linus is the only one to add to the "official" kernel. While I'm not sure why he doesn't use RCS (maybe he does), CVS would be pointless, since there is no "concurrent" development done on the official kernel. However, there was talk of him using a much better system for the type of development the kernel does (bitwize or something like that, which is designed much closer to the development model of the kernel). However, I haven't watched the kernel group lately, so don't know where that discussion went.
This is not a desktop calculator, it is best that all patches get reviewed, not just added and debugged later.
Slashdot Mirror
Regardless of whether or not it's a Free-Software system, or a leased system from Microsoft, there is the big issue of automatic upgrades.
Example:
I need to get the Monthly status report out, I log in, and go to update the report. Oops, it decided to upgrade itself last night, and there seems to be a major bug in a feature I use, or they changed how the feature worked. Now I have a stressful time figuring out how to get the report done.
Given the horrible reliability of MS apps, I really wouldn't want auto-upgrades. I had Win98, and the SmartUpdate was a disaster on several occasions. (As a warning, never try to update more than one piece of software at a time with SmartUpdate).
-- Keith Moore
If it's a single user system, it's probably not a server on the public side of a firewall, where a bunch of people will be trying to trash it.
-- Keith Moore
Actually, Darwin had stated that he highly doubted his earlier ideas, primarily due to the fossil record being oddly counter to his arguments. While there have been some minor advances in trying to find "transition" fossils, it is still a great hole in the theory. One fossil layer will include X # of species, and the next with include X+n species, but no transition fossils.
;^)
evolution is a fact, Evolution is a highly unsupported theory. Christians who argue evolution, make it very hard to argue Evolution.
If you have a good knowledge of Biology, (As my wife and a co-worker do), you should read "Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution" ISBN: 0-684-83493-6. Some extremely interesting information.
(BTW, I actually work for the company which issues ISBN's
-- Keith Moore
While some of your points are valid, it still doesn't mean the GPL should change. The GPL gives you the option to protect your product + source, while the others generally don't. If you are into developing software for the public good, the GPL is the best license, since it will continue to evolve and stay open. If you are out to write free-software, and don't care what happens to it, BSD and the like are fine. There is no real need for licenses to change, however you just need to be aware of certain incompatibilities.
-- Keith Moore
I will agree that the Requirements Document is extremely important. It's real nice to solve a problem, but it's much better to solve the right problem. As for the design document, I generally only used a high-level document, and defined interfaces where multiple modules were to communicate, to allow for multiple programers. Also, I maintained coding standards, which included commenting standards. With all of those implemented, I haven't had any real problems debugging (especially with assert standards).
(I was a C/C++, mostly UNIX, developer for 9 years, before switching to UNIX Administration).
-- Keith Moore
Exactly. While I might say that given equal skill in both UNIX/Linux and NT, you can get a UNIX box to be more stable, I will agree that it takes a lot of skill to make NT solid, which kind of defeats the primary purpose of NT. Which was to allow you to get a cheap Administrator: "Excuse me, I know you are the Janitor, but can you admin this NT box? It has a GUI". At least, that's how MS sold it to MIS Managers.
Now, given that they both need skilled Admins, and you now have most of the server-side software on Linux, and it's extremely difficult to get two NT boxes to act exactly the same, even if they are stable, what was the reason for NT?
-- Keith Moore
Actually, there are only a few primary distributions (Redhat, Caldera, Debian, Suse). Most of the others start with one of those and add features or optimize for higher end CPUs (at the expense of supporting lower end CPUs at all).
Also, I recently installed all of them, and they are starting to get more compatible, not less. SuSe now has compatibility sym-links to duplicate RedHat's SysV init script system, and Caldera is getting a little less pig-headed about things too.
Even RedHat has made some changes to facilitate easier support of multiple distribs. (/var/mail,/var/spool/mail is still a sticking point, but that's relatively minor and can be fixed yourself).
-- Keith Moore
Apps are not a problem, the OS is the building block of everything, and it needs to be open to allow true competition in the industry. Once a vendor has control over the OS, well, you know the story. With Linux, there are no hidden APIs, or changing for the sole purpose of breaking other Apps.
Remember, the MS moto for Dos 2.0, "2.0 won't be done, until 1-2-3 won't run.". (I might not have the right version)
-- Keith Moore
I believe Closed source has a role in Applications, But not in the OS. It is too easy to get another MS, with hidden APIs and Stock-price controlled Features in the future. It's just not worth it.
-- Keith Moore
Maybe some of us don't want another MS?
If we wanted another Proprietary OS, OS/2 would be the one, it's much more flexible, and is rock-solid, and proven. Be is just an OS/2 wannabe without the stability, but with pretty graphics (A more stable Mac).
-- Keith Moore
DesqView/X was a GREAT product, we used it, plus the development kit to develop X Apps without having to purchase a Sun system, or a very expensive SCO License. When we finally did get a Sun System the port was quick and relatively painless. (The only issues involved where related to 8.3 naming problems which caused duplicates in the Motif Header files).
It definately performed better than Win95 does today with native apps, and Win 3.1 ran well in it also. I will never figure out how it didn't kick some royal butt, but the same can be said for OS/2.
Ah, the damage MS has done is immeasurable. Imagine where we could be today, stable apps with more features that we WANT, instead of what Bill thinks we want.
-- Keith Moore
You haven't installed any of the latest Distros have you? About the only piece missing is InstallShield(tm), but RPM works quite nicely (Now that they finally killed GLINT for GnoRPM).
The underlying OS is generally not all that important to Joe User. However, when something goes wrong, and they call their Brother/Father, or bring it to someone to fix it (BTW, most "Joe" users end up having SOMEONE fix their Windows machines for them) It's A LOT easier to fix/clean up Linux than WinXX. And you don't need to do it nearly as often.
-- Keith Moore
Of course this could end up being very good for Christians. What if they allow a clone to grow, and it has a completely different personality... interesting, Genes have 0 to do with the "Id", or Soul? Very interesting.
I think there are some ethical issues, but I'm not as much against it as most Christians, since it may end up helping prove a major seperation between Soul and Body.
And yes, abortion of clones is a Bad Thing(tm), as are any others.
-- Keith Moore
speling????
-- Keith Moore
After LinuxExpo, I installed Debian 2.1 (Actually, debian's install was so broken it ended up not working), Caldera 2.2, RedHat 6.0, and SuSE, and with the exception of Debian (I just don't know if it does), they all let you choose your WM when you login, and they all allow you to enable XDM/KDM logins during installation.
BTW, after doing them all, for the installs, I would rate RedHat #1, SuSE #2, Caldera #3 (pretty, but buggy), installing from random unlabled floppies #4, and debian #5.
I was very happy to see RedHat install SMP support automatically.
-- Keith Moore
I haven't heard many problems of 6.0, especially compared to 5.0, And I'm running on several machines (gnoRPM rules). I have not had any problems, even on crappy Compaq stuff.
/opt. If the Distro doesn't follow the FHS, it should be considered broken, and I was glad to see that SuSE now added symlinks to make the /etc/rc.d tree compatible with RedHat's. (The FHS doesn't cement the rc.d structure).
The definately streamlined the install, and I also Installed SuSE, (Wanted the TNT driver, and didn't have Linux installed yet, and I'm not a RH bigot, just like it). I still prefer RH (I use E + GNOME, I use KDE under SuSE and LinuxPPC). I actually prefer GNOME to KDE now, and I've been using KDE for quite some time.
Anyway, I'll probably keep using RedHat for my main distro, because dispite the complaints I have not had any problems, which is the great thing about choice.
As for a slightly different thread about
-- Keith Moore
Get off it, I liked Jar Jar.
This was a clean, good movie, if it didn't live up to your wet-dreams about it, that's your problem, Personally, I just avoided all the hype and enjoyed the movie, it was funny, and the acting was good (for the important roles, at least).
Was it a oscar winning, in-depth movie? No, but who cares what Oscar thinks? If Lucas stays true-to-form, the second will be a bit more mature, (and romantic), and the final will be darker, and more serious.
-- Keith Moore
Xerox Reps have admitted that the internals of the Docu-Centres run Linux. The Big guys (DP65 and up) run Solaris Stations.
My guess is that MS threatened to make the Xerox printers run poorly unless they switched to NT on the inside.
-- Keith Moore
Much of what is said on that site is sadly true. I know that many horrific things have been done "In the name of God". However, I believe that this should not be confused with Christianity. If there was a group of Homosexuals who went out to kill all Heterosexuals, would you be so quick to mock and attack Homosexuals?
Even in the New Testament Jesus attacks the current "Religious leadership" as hypocrits. (This is actually what got him in so much trouble). Christianity, which is based on Jesus' teachings, teaches Tolerance and loving. (Hate the sin, not the sinner). It is my belief that Homosexuality is a sin. However, I have had homosexual friends. I never made any direct attacks on their lifestyles, and if asked, would simply answer: "I do not believe in your lifestyle, nor do I believe in MY right to choose your lifestyle". Jesus teaches that each person has to make thier own choice.
Let there be no mistake about it: Those who kill abortion doctors are sinners, and NOT CHRISTIANS. They are not doing ANYONE any good. On the other hand, Planned Parenthood (and other associated groups) explicately attempts to arrest parental controls away and talk teens into abortion without giving other options/choices. They are even more wrong, they are preying on the weak, and taking advantage of a bad situation.
Also, for those who threatened to Sue the site: You are really confused, The Bible explicitly tells Christians not to sue people. (I wish I could remember the verses, but alas I do not have my Thompsan-Chain(tm) Reference with me).
For those who have been ridiculed by those who call themselves Christians, for those who have been looked down on by those who call themselves Christians: I am sorry, it is wrong, Jesus loves you, and so should we.
"Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?"
Jesus replied: "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."niv
Matt 22:36-40
-- Keith Moore
We have swapped out several NT boxes with Linux boxes (less hardware at that) to improve File serving performance.
Oh well. Here we go again.
-- Keith Moore
Actually, the moved TPM into the Expo slot. I'm still going to Linux Expo, and perhaps a bunch of Linux geeks will get together for a viewing ;^).
BTW, LinuxWorld probably screwed over the REAL Linux Exp more than this will. (I really, really, really hate what they did).
-- Keith Moore
I have a 4 way sql server that has been running for 2 years straight. I tried to experiment with linux and run q3test but it froze my os and crashed netscape multiple times after the game was run
When it comes to abusing hardware, Games are much worse than things like RDBMS's. Have you tried to run an Oracle 8.x Database on Linux on a 4 way system? I have, it is extremely stable, and FAST.
it gets its butt kicked by NT with the defualt settings according...
NT was nowhere near the default settings, they had MSCE's from MS itself help them tune it for many hours.
You may think Linux sucks, that's fine, but I have multiple Linux boxes with uptimes nearing a year (I had to upgrade above 2.0.18 due to some SMP troubles, or it may be longer). And I even have one with multiple 100mb cards on a simple P200 running a Novell -> NFS Gateway 24/7 for the past 8 months, with only 3 hours downtime. This box is used approx 16 out of every 24 hours, for heavy traffic, and has light traffic the rest of the time. The downtime was caused by a very nasty power outage. When the power came back, so did the server.
I have a LinuxPPC workstation which had a longer uptime than any NT server in our company until the Network card went south on me, and it has had some major Software upgrades before that. (No reboot required, even when swapping out the Window Manager, which is NOT tied into the OS).
I know that Linux is lacking a few things, however he was not comparing Linux with UNIX, or even Plan 9, he was comparing it to NT, which is laughable at best.
I have to agree with several of the other posters, that he is really, really annoyed that Plan 9 didn't take off. I remember when he started it, it was going to replace everything! I haven't seen an actual install of it yet for business reasons.
-- Keith Moore
You should do some very in-depth study of what the ACLU has done in the past before you feed someone to the wolves.
-- Keith Moore
Is this the first response to these problems?? Isn't the legal profession the reason we have so many problems? Petty laws and stupid lawsuits. Lawyers are not the answer.
-- Keith Moore
The Linux kernel is developed by multiple people, however Linus is the only one to add to the "official" kernel. While I'm not sure why he doesn't use RCS (maybe he does), CVS would be pointless, since there is no "concurrent" development done on the official kernel. However, there was talk of him using a much better system for the type of development the kernel does (bitwize or something like that, which is designed much closer to the development model of the kernel). However, I haven't watched the kernel group lately, so don't know where that discussion went.
This is not a desktop calculator, it is best that all patches get reviewed, not just added and debugged later.
-- Keith Moore