But, my package manager (portage) is local to my box, not being monitored by some other company out there knowing and tracking what I do or do not have on my box.
Well they may not tie it to a user, but they can certainly track based upon IP address.
Also, never had to pay for software to download and install on my linux box before...
I have. Not for software through apt, mind you, but I've certainly bought software for Linux. And of course, it didn't tie into apt, which meant that I didn't get notified of updates automatically. If I recall correctly, it also installed things in uncommon (for my distro) places, like/opt.
I'm of a couple of minds on the free speech issue. On the one hand, I agree with you. It should be fairly obvious when speech should be protected, and when it doesn't need protection. On the other hand, abusing the court system is far, far too easy. It's would be too easy for a political candidate to bring about charges of slander or libel, forcing someone to spend money defending themselves. Even bringing about the case is a slap in the face of free speech. And I don't think we can just stop whenever we want to--the citizens have precious little control over the government in America these days. Each blow to free speech removes just a little bit more.
Yes, but WHY are codecs a flooded market? Because every maker of some kind of crappy hardware thinks it's a spiffy idea to create its own proprietary format(s) that only their own products may used and can be compatible with, in an attempt to lock-in potential customers.
It wouldn't surprise me in the least if the reason for this has more to do with patents than NIH (Not Invented Here) syndrome. If a company thinks that they can create their own codec less expensively than licensing, they'll do it.
9. The Free Software Foundation may publish revised and/or new versions of the General Public License from time to time. Such new versions will be similar in spirit to the present version, but may differ in detail to address new problems or concerns.
Each version is given a distinguishing version number. If the Program specifies a version number of this License which applies to it and "any later version", you have the option of following the terms and conditions either of that version or of any later version published by the Free Software Foundation. If the Program does not specify a version number of this License, you may choose any version ever published by the Free Software Foundation.
They can copy the Linux kernel which they can acquire at GPLv2 and then give it out (modified or not) as GPLv3 and those who receive it from them can only use it under the license they received it in, or a newer version. If they want an earlier version of the license then they must find someone willing to give them a copy with an earlier version attached.
In short, the GPL is forwards compatible not backwards compatible.
Wrong. The Linux kernel specifies version 2. It does not include the "or later" clause which would allow the use of a later license.
Plus, Google doesn't have the right to require GPLv3. The Kernel is only licensed for GPLv2. If they had the right to change it to v3, they would have the right to change it to damn near anything they wanted.
Being on the Internet, I can't prove that I'm not a Windows fan. But I'm not. I've tried to use Windows, and I just can't get over how clunky and unpleasant the experience is. At home, I use Linux on a netbook. At work, I use a mac. I have an iPad (which is taking over most of my consumption) and a spiffy new Android phone.
I wholeheartedly believe the "myth" that one of the primary reasons that Windows has more viruses is due to market share. It's not just about having the most boxes out there, though--it's also got to do with discernment of the users. Put bluntly, through inertia and unwillingness to adapt (something I've admitted to in this very post, in fact), Microsoft has a huge chunk of users who just don't know any better. They grew up, technologically speaking, on Microsoft. They use it at work. They're comfortable with it. They also don't know a thing about security, why you shouldn't run any old program you find on the Net or in your e-mail, etc. This creates something of a perfect storm for malware--a large field to play in along with a large number of successful penetrations is good for business.
Mac users probably aren't much more discerning, but they're fewer enough in number to make the cost of maintaining e.g. a botnet of Macs too high. The successful botnets of this age have adapted quickly--likely too quickly to support multiple platforms. There's also the problem of inertia and perception--Macs are growing in popularity, and may even now have a critical mass to make writing malware worthwhile--but malware authors haven't noticed. Heck, with almost few Macs running Antivirus, you'd think malware authors would flock there if getting those users would be profitable at all--but they don't.
Linux users historically are much more discerning. I think that's slowly changing now, but the market share is still very low. That said, I run across compromised Linux machines more often than compromised Macs--though the reason is almost always due to a bad password and SSH running.
An interesting aside which doesn't have a particularly good fit elsewhere in this post is that pwn2own hacker Charlie Miller thinks that Safari on OS X is the easiest browser/OS combination to exploit. Interesting, then, that it's not done more often.
Security-wise, there's little practical difference between Windows, OS X, and Linux these days. All three run with lower-than-admin permissions by default and prompt you to elevate when administrative tasks need to be done. Each has security APIs to allow programmers to help secure their apps. All three have vulnerabilities, both in the software and between the keyboard and chair. The biggest and most obvious difference between them is market share, followed by user mindset. I'm always interested to hear other opinions, though.
The iOS devices basically progress in a predictable fashion inheriting the functions of the last gen.. IE you can easily choose your lowest target and with very minimal tweaking support ALL higher / newer devices.. Also using consistent APIs you can detect specific models and enable specific features, knowing they EXIST on the device without writing custom code to detect them.
A fair point, though it's reasonable to point out that there are currently three devices with different hardware specs which are the most recent targets of their line.
That said, the Android Market allows you to specify features which are required for your app. You can write to a lowest common denominator there, too, without worrying about testing for specific features. That is, unless you want optional support. How would an iOS app handle optional support for, say, a camera, without custom code?
As android has progressed there have been APIs from vendors made to support model specific features. You can't count on what UI the user sees since HTC, Sony and Moto all reskin the OS... Makes it fun to explain to users how to do stuff when the OS looks alien.
Is there really much change once the user is in your application?
There really are a lot of commercial apps for Linux--they're just mostly Enterprisey. And they do suffer from fragmentation, to a degree. Usually one or two versions of one or two distros will be supported. Need to update due to security reasons? Hopefully you've got a support contract, but even then they may not provide an update for a newer version of the distro.
Using your argument - if there's only 1 device it has to be goddam perfect since all your eggs are in that basket. Hence the ludicrous situation earlier in the year when Apple royally screwed the iPhone4's antenna and *blamed the user* for holding it wrong. Its more than just marketing, its borderline brainwashing - they just could not under any circumstances accept their entire product range of 1 was a turkey. Fortunately, as has been said before, Steve Jobs treats his customers like idiots and, as usual, on this occasion they proved him right again.
Had an Android phone been made with a defective antenna, users would have bought a different model whilst the first is recalled, fixed and relaunched.
The Antennagate debacle should have been horribly embarrassing for Apple, both in the design, testing failure, and response once the issue was known. It kills me that Jobs got away with blaming the users.
That said, Android's nothing special. The phones are made by all sorts of companies. Some might have issued a recall, some might have dealt with it. My personal experience with a very similar issue was with the Nexus One. If I held the phone in the wrong way (which happened to be the most natural way for me to hold the phone while reading on it) I would lose 2-3 bars--often causing a complete loss of signal. You can read about this well-known issue by searching for "death grip nexus one." The term "death grip" seems to imply a tight grip, but that wasn't required to repeat the issue (at least in my case.)
The end result was not a recall, and though the Nexus One happened to flop, it's unlikely that this was the reason. My end result was sending the phone back as defective and getting hit with a restocking fee I was unable to get out of despite the fact that the phone was simply unusable to me. To their credit, Apple at least fully refunded users who felt that the antenna issue made the phones unusable.
But there's fragmentation on iOS, too. The oldest generation of iPod Touch and iPhone can't get the newest software version. Still supported devices may not have cameras (last gen Touch and iPad.) They may not have a consistent data connection.
All of these cases have caused issues with software. For example, some apps require a camera. That's fine. But when someone links to an app and says, "Check this out," and you follow that link on a device without a camera, you basically get to a 404 page. You're left wondering what's going on.
Then there's the data connection. A very popular app (Angry Birds Seasons) inexplicably requires an Internet connection. I suppose it's because the winter levels form an advent calendar and they want to make sure people don't jump ahead. You could do that by checking the date, but I guess that wasn't good enough. Regardless, it took a lot of people by surprise when they tried to play on their Touch.
But of course, software version is the biggest issue. When I update apps, I can't count the number of times that an update has been required because the developer didn't test well enough on one version or another of the OS and got complaints. And of course, there are people on older devices who get left out in the cold because a developer wants to use the worthless Game Center.
No, there's fragmentation on iOS, and it's only going to get worse. It's just that this fragmentation is a dirty little secret swept under the rug in order to have an excuse to complain about Android.
Lots of things are effectively self-governing until technology comes along which removes burdens to doing those things. Take police tailing people--affixing a GPS or using traffic cameras to follow the person means that tailing someone is almost free. Different courts have disagreed on whether GPS-tailing is a rights violation (if they don't break into your car to do it.) Before these technologies, there wasn't much question about the legality of police tracking your movements. Now that it's trivial to do, we (as a society) are slowly reexamining the issue.
Another issue is child porn. Now that many, many teens have access to a camera (their phone) and a distribution mechanism (MMS, the Internet), we're seeing people charged with creation and possession of child porn where they wouldn't have had the ability before. Teens sending pictures of themselves to their significant others probably shouldn't be criminal--yet lives have been ruined due to the government failing to adapt.
Scale and ability have a lot to do with how and why laws are written. I think that the government is close to asking the right question -- instead of thinking of things as being different when they're on the Internet, they should be asking if things should be different now that technology makes it so easy.
Re:I loved the original, but..
on
Tron: Legacy
·
· Score: 1
I want to believe there was a "piracy is good" kinda theme in there:)
Re:I loved the original, but..
on
Tron: Legacy
·
· Score: 2
Exactly. In fact, I felt that the whole film was pretty much exposition with no purpose.
Sam was nothing more than a MacGuffin. He manages to get sucked onto the Grid, participates in some games, and then serves only as a reason for other characters to explain things about the world. He's worse than Harry Potter in the early stories.
I also never got a sense that the threat in the film was significant. So what if Clu gets out into the real world? Practically, what is he going to do?
For that matter, how does Quorra (or any of the ISOs) getting out into the real world change anything?
To me, the film was just this short of having a coherent story.
Personally, I don't want to be taken for a ride. In the first case, the store has over 100% markup, which offends me if another store is able to sell it at a much lower price. I'm not only likely to go to that other store, but I'm likely to stop shopping at the first one.
It's not about the flat savings, it's about overcharging.
I back it up to a printout that I store in a safety deposit box. That way even if my data and all backups fail, I still have a human readable copy somewhere.
this is still downright dishonest if the customers had a reasonable expectation that Amazon would go on providing their books for re-download perpetually.
I wouldn't pay "full price" for any of those games but Braid. I'll likely donate just to get a DRM-free, Linux version of it. I'm doing that despite the fact that I paid $15 for it on Windows 18 months ago. I'm "stuck" with the rest of the games (two of which sound like they're not even complete and one of which is available for $5 on another platform (Osmose/iPad)).
Ripping off charity? Hardly. The games just aren't worth much to that many people.
Slashdot Mirror
You missed:
2) For some reason, this particular company didn't have a single machine in the USA for several years.
Apparently they don't do business in Nevada, and they don't care.
But, my package manager (portage) is local to my box, not being monitored by some other company out there knowing and tracking what I do or do not have on my box.
Well they may not tie it to a user, but they can certainly track based upon IP address.
Also, never had to pay for software to download and install on my linux box before...
I have. Not for software through apt, mind you, but I've certainly bought software for Linux. And of course, it didn't tie into apt, which meant that I didn't get notified of updates automatically. If I recall correctly, it also installed things in uncommon (for my distro) places, like /opt.
Incidentally, this is a perfect example of why I feel that absolute freedom of speech is important.
How about only having liability on code which cannot be inspected? Though the lobbys would never allow that to pass.
I can't imagine troubleshooting over such a tiny image. This is much, much better: http://www.uvnc.com/addons/singleclick.html
I'm of a couple of minds on the free speech issue. On the one hand, I agree with you. It should be fairly obvious when speech should be protected, and when it doesn't need protection. On the other hand, abusing the court system is far, far too easy. It's would be too easy for a political candidate to bring about charges of slander or libel, forcing someone to spend money defending themselves. Even bringing about the case is a slap in the face of free speech. And I don't think we can just stop whenever we want to--the citizens have precious little control over the government in America these days. Each blow to free speech removes just a little bit more.
Yes, but WHY are codecs a flooded market? Because every maker of some kind of crappy hardware thinks it's a spiffy idea to create its own proprietary format(s) that only their own products may used and can be compatible with, in an attempt to lock-in potential customers.
It wouldn't surprise me in the least if the reason for this has more to do with patents than NIH (Not Invented Here) syndrome. If a company thinks that they can create their own codec less expensively than licensing, they'll do it.
Indeed, thanks. I was posting from a less-than-enabled device and citing my statement would have been pretty difficult.
Wrong.
9. The Free Software Foundation may publish revised and/or new versions
of the General Public License from time to time. Such new versions will
be similar in spirit to the present version, but may differ in detail to
address new problems or concerns.
Each version is given a distinguishing version number. If the Program
specifies a version number of this License which applies to it and "any
later version", you have the option of following the terms and conditions
either of that version or of any later version published by the Free
Software Foundation. If the Program does not specify a version number of
this License, you may choose any version ever published by the Free Software
Foundation.
Source
They can copy the Linux kernel which they can acquire at GPLv2 and then give it out (modified or not) as GPLv3 and those who receive it from them can only use it under the license they received it in, or a newer version. If they want an earlier version of the license then they must find someone willing to give them a copy with an earlier version attached.
In short, the GPL is forwards compatible not backwards compatible.
Wrong. The Linux kernel specifies version 2. It does not include the "or later" clause which would allow the use of a later license.
ulessthanme
Android is based upon the Linux kernel, which is GPLv2. Though some GPL software says "version X or later", the kernel does not.
Plus, Google doesn't have the right to require GPLv3. The Kernel is only licensed for GPLv2. If they had the right to change it to v3, they would have the right to change it to damn near anything they wanted.
Honestly, I don't know. I could just really see Microsoft trying to promote something like that rather than port Office.
http://office365.microsoft.com/en-US/online-services.aspx would probably work.
Being on the Internet, I can't prove that I'm not a Windows fan. But I'm not. I've tried to use Windows, and I just can't get over how clunky and unpleasant the experience is. At home, I use Linux on a netbook. At work, I use a mac. I have an iPad (which is taking over most of my consumption) and a spiffy new Android phone.
I wholeheartedly believe the "myth" that one of the primary reasons that Windows has more viruses is due to market share. It's not just about having the most boxes out there, though--it's also got to do with discernment of the users. Put bluntly, through inertia and unwillingness to adapt (something I've admitted to in this very post, in fact), Microsoft has a huge chunk of users who just don't know any better. They grew up, technologically speaking, on Microsoft. They use it at work. They're comfortable with it. They also don't know a thing about security, why you shouldn't run any old program you find on the Net or in your e-mail, etc. This creates something of a perfect storm for malware--a large field to play in along with a large number of successful penetrations is good for business.
Mac users probably aren't much more discerning, but they're fewer enough in number to make the cost of maintaining e.g. a botnet of Macs too high. The successful botnets of this age have adapted quickly--likely too quickly to support multiple platforms. There's also the problem of inertia and perception--Macs are growing in popularity, and may even now have a critical mass to make writing malware worthwhile--but malware authors haven't noticed. Heck, with almost few Macs running Antivirus, you'd think malware authors would flock there if getting those users would be profitable at all--but they don't.
Linux users historically are much more discerning. I think that's slowly changing now, but the market share is still very low. That said, I run across compromised Linux machines more often than compromised Macs--though the reason is almost always due to a bad password and SSH running.
An interesting aside which doesn't have a particularly good fit elsewhere in this post is that pwn2own hacker Charlie Miller thinks that Safari on OS X is the easiest browser/OS combination to exploit. Interesting, then, that it's not done more often.
Security-wise, there's little practical difference between Windows, OS X, and Linux these days. All three run with lower-than-admin permissions by default and prompt you to elevate when administrative tasks need to be done. Each has security APIs to allow programmers to help secure their apps. All three have vulnerabilities, both in the software and between the keyboard and chair. The biggest and most obvious difference between them is market share, followed by user mindset. I'm always interested to hear other opinions, though.
As a developer there is a HUGE difference...
The iOS devices basically progress in a predictable fashion inheriting the functions of the last gen.. IE you can easily choose your lowest target and with very minimal tweaking support ALL higher / newer devices.. Also using consistent APIs you can detect specific models and enable specific features, knowing they EXIST on the device without writing custom code to detect them.
A fair point, though it's reasonable to point out that there are currently three devices with different hardware specs which are the most recent targets of their line.
That said, the Android Market allows you to specify features which are required for your app. You can write to a lowest common denominator there, too, without worrying about testing for specific features. That is, unless you want optional support. How would an iOS app handle optional support for, say, a camera, without custom code?
As android has progressed there have been APIs from vendors made to support model specific features. You can't count on what UI the user sees since HTC, Sony and Moto all reskin the OS... Makes it fun to explain to users how to do stuff when the OS looks alien.
Is there really much change once the user is in your application?
There really are a lot of commercial apps for Linux--they're just mostly Enterprisey. And they do suffer from fragmentation, to a degree. Usually one or two versions of one or two distros will be supported. Need to update due to security reasons? Hopefully you've got a support contract, but even then they may not provide an update for a newer version of the distro.
Every OS has fragmentation to a certain degree.
Using your argument - if there's only 1 device it has to be goddam perfect since all your eggs are in that basket. Hence the ludicrous situation earlier in the year when Apple royally screwed the iPhone4's antenna and *blamed the user* for holding it wrong. Its more than just marketing, its borderline brainwashing - they just could not under any circumstances accept their entire product range of 1 was a turkey. Fortunately, as has been said before, Steve Jobs treats his customers like idiots and, as usual, on this occasion they proved him right again.
Had an Android phone been made with a defective antenna, users would have bought a different model whilst the first is recalled, fixed and relaunched.
The Antennagate debacle should have been horribly embarrassing for Apple, both in the design, testing failure, and response once the issue was known. It kills me that Jobs got away with blaming the users.
That said, Android's nothing special. The phones are made by all sorts of companies. Some might have issued a recall, some might have dealt with it. My personal experience with a very similar issue was with the Nexus One. If I held the phone in the wrong way (which happened to be the most natural way for me to hold the phone while reading on it) I would lose 2-3 bars--often causing a complete loss of signal. You can read about this well-known issue by searching for "death grip nexus one." The term "death grip" seems to imply a tight grip, but that wasn't required to repeat the issue (at least in my case.)
The end result was not a recall, and though the Nexus One happened to flop, it's unlikely that this was the reason. My end result was sending the phone back as defective and getting hit with a restocking fee I was unable to get out of despite the fact that the phone was simply unusable to me. To their credit, Apple at least fully refunded users who felt that the antenna issue made the phones unusable.
But there's fragmentation on iOS, too. The oldest generation of iPod Touch and iPhone can't get the newest software version. Still supported devices may not have cameras (last gen Touch and iPad.) They may not have a consistent data connection.
All of these cases have caused issues with software. For example, some apps require a camera. That's fine. But when someone links to an app and says, "Check this out," and you follow that link on a device without a camera, you basically get to a 404 page. You're left wondering what's going on.
Then there's the data connection. A very popular app (Angry Birds Seasons) inexplicably requires an Internet connection. I suppose it's because the winter levels form an advent calendar and they want to make sure people don't jump ahead. You could do that by checking the date, but I guess that wasn't good enough. Regardless, it took a lot of people by surprise when they tried to play on their Touch.
But of course, software version is the biggest issue. When I update apps, I can't count the number of times that an update has been required because the developer didn't test well enough on one version or another of the OS and got complaints. And of course, there are people on older devices who get left out in the cold because a developer wants to use the worthless Game Center.
No, there's fragmentation on iOS, and it's only going to get worse. It's just that this fragmentation is a dirty little secret swept under the rug in order to have an excuse to complain about Android.
Lots of things are effectively self-governing until technology comes along which removes burdens to doing those things. Take police tailing people--affixing a GPS or using traffic cameras to follow the person means that tailing someone is almost free. Different courts have disagreed on whether GPS-tailing is a rights violation (if they don't break into your car to do it.) Before these technologies, there wasn't much question about the legality of police tracking your movements. Now that it's trivial to do, we (as a society) are slowly reexamining the issue.
Another issue is child porn. Now that many, many teens have access to a camera (their phone) and a distribution mechanism (MMS, the Internet), we're seeing people charged with creation and possession of child porn where they wouldn't have had the ability before. Teens sending pictures of themselves to their significant others probably shouldn't be criminal--yet lives have been ruined due to the government failing to adapt.
Scale and ability have a lot to do with how and why laws are written. I think that the government is close to asking the right question -- instead of thinking of things as being different when they're on the Internet, they should be asking if things should be different now that technology makes it so easy.
I want to believe there was a "piracy is good" kinda theme in there :)
Exactly. In fact, I felt that the whole film was pretty much exposition with no purpose.
Sam was nothing more than a MacGuffin. He manages to get sucked onto the Grid, participates in some games, and then serves only as a reason for other characters to explain things about the world. He's worse than Harry Potter in the early stories.
I also never got a sense that the threat in the film was significant. So what if Clu gets out into the real world? Practically, what is he going to do?
For that matter, how does Quorra (or any of the ISOs) getting out into the real world change anything?
To me, the film was just this short of having a coherent story.
Personally, I don't want to be taken for a ride. In the first case, the store has over 100% markup, which offends me if another store is able to sell it at a much lower price. I'm not only likely to go to that other store, but I'm likely to stop shopping at the first one.
It's not about the flat savings, it's about overcharging.
I back it up to a printout that I store in a safety deposit box. That way even if my data and all backups fail, I still have a human readable copy somewhere.
this is still downright dishonest if the customers had a reasonable expectation that Amazon would go on providing their books for re-download perpetually.
There have been publicized issues in the past regarding customers having problems redownloading books. The most recent information I can find on the subject is at http://consumerist.com/2009/06/amazon-tries-to-clarify-download-limits-for-kindle-books-doesnt-quite-succeed.html.
This is just another disadvantage of the cloud. Putting your data in someone else's hands is dangerous.
I wouldn't pay "full price" for any of those games but Braid. I'll likely donate just to get a DRM-free, Linux version of it. I'm doing that despite the fact that I paid $15 for it on Windows 18 months ago. I'm "stuck" with the rest of the games (two of which sound like they're not even complete and one of which is available for $5 on another platform (Osmose/iPad)).
Ripping off charity? Hardly. The games just aren't worth much to that many people.