Slashdot should add a new column to the front page. Right above the latest poll add a list of current companies on the Slashdot blacklist. Then, Slashdot should change it's slogan to "Who do you want to blacklist today?"
And this is why linux will fail. The linux community puts no money into research. Corporations are now starting to take notice, so this may change, but for now the future looks very bleak.
If I clone Free Agent, I have just done a great service to the free software community: one less instance of Windows being loaded.
My problem is that almost all recent software developed for UNIX is a clone of an existing application from Microsoft or from Apple. Now, if there were some apps that were cloned and other original solutions, I would not have a problem. It is just that I grow tired of listening to linux zealots screaming about how horrible Microsoft is as they launch into KDE.
This is also why Linux will never become truly successful. If Linux were to be loaded on to every desktop and Microsoft was absorbed into that whole AOL-Time-Warner deal, the Linux community would not know what the hell to do. No one left to clone. My question is this: what will happen to Linux when it is done playing catch-up?
Gee, it looks earily familiar... Could it be... Microsoft Outlook for UNIX? The linux community needs to start developing some real software, not just mimicing what Microsoft has already done. For a community that continues to berate Microsoft, I find it extremely funny how all the software they use looks very familiar...
The key here is that just about everyone on this site will preface their posts with IANAL (I am not a lawyer). What you need to find is someone who says IAAL. Lawyers get paid a lot of money to answer these questions and deal with these problems. Invest in one, otherwise you are going to lose.
One of the weakest points with GNU/Linux is that there is really no innovation in any part of the system. It can be argued that devFS, and a few other features to the kernel are new and unique to Linux, however you can probably count these features on your hand.
GNU/Linux (I am also including the applications bundled with the distributions) do not demonstrate any innovation. Every application is an effort to mimic something already developed in Microsoft Windows or another operating system. There are a few exceptions to this rule (scientific and server software), but for the most part this holds true. Another weakpoint is the XFree86 project. Instead of developing video drivers for the system, drivers are built specifically for the application. This means that we are going to be stuck with XFree86 forever. The Berlin Consortium has set out to solve problems in X and to add new features (Alpha transparency), but without drivers the project is destined to fail. And, if you say that X is "good enough," well "good enough" never succeeds unless it is the only option.
So, what then is the solution? I wish I knew it. Most professional organizations devote a lot of their resources to research & development. As far as i know, there are no research & development groups for GNU/Linux. This is beginning to change with the aid of coporate interests, but it will take years for this to happen. I mean we still do not have a journaling file system!
One other thing to notice, is that Bell Labs recognized in the 1980's that UNIX was riddled with problems, and so they began work on Plan 9, which later became Inferno. The only thing they took from UNIX was treating devices as a file system. So, when will the rest of the community realize that we are trying to repair something that needs to be redesigned.
The article does not have a lot about the technical details, and if I remember correctly laser technology can be riddled with problems. In "Computer Networks" by Tanenbaum, there is a brief discussion concerning the problems with lightwave transmission. Some of the problems include:
"Coherent optical signaling using lasers is inherently unidirectional" Two lasers can get very expensive...
"High bandwidth at a low cost" Look at the next point
"...laser beams cannot penetrate rain or thick fog" Notice that they are developing this technology in San Diego
"..., but they normally work well on sunny days. However, the author once attended a conference at a modern hotel in Europe at which the conference organizers thoughfully provided a room full of terminals for the attendees to read their email during boring presentations. Since the local PTT was unwilling to install a large number of telephone lines for just 3 days, the organizers put a laser on the roof and aimed it at their university's computer science building a few kilometers away. They tested it the night before the conference and it worked perfectly. At 9 a.m. the next morning, on a bright and sunny day, the link failed completely and stayed down all day. That evening, the organizers tested it again very carefully, and once again, it worked absolutely perfectly. The pattern repeated itself for two more days consistently.
After the conference, the organizers discovered the problem. Heat from the sun during the daytime caused convection currents to rise up from the roof of the building. This turbulent air diverted the beam and made it kle. It is also responsible for shimmering roads on a hot day and the wavy images when looking out above a hot radio."
I wonder how they address these issues. If they have not, I would never use this technology; it is expensive and unreliable. But, congratulations on the bandwidth!
Well, the kids who do this like to see service disrupted. Isn't this doing the job for them? They might even continue attacks so they get more people to protest by shutting down.
CFS is a solution, but not the best solution. It runs in user space (if I remember correctly), so a skilled script kiddie could read the memory contents and discover the key. Furthermore, it is pretty slow, especially if you are considering using large files (i.e. MP3 files). A better solution was posed by some Columbia grad students, called Cryptfs. Cryptfs builds on CFS and the later implementation TCFS. For an overview on the weaknesses of other encrypted file systems check out the Cryptfs home page. Unfortunately, I cannot find the implementation of Cryptfs.
Another solution is to use a loop-back encrypted file system. There is a how-to at linuxdoc.org.
Slashdot Mirror
Slashdot should add a new column to the front page. Right above the latest poll add a list of current companies on the Slashdot blacklist. Then, Slashdot should change it's slogan to "Who do you want to blacklist today?"
And this is why linux will fail. The linux community puts no money into research. Corporations are now starting to take notice, so this may change, but for now the future looks very bleak.
If I clone Free Agent, I have just done a great service to the free software community: one less instance of Windows being loaded.
My problem is that almost all recent software developed for UNIX is a clone of an existing application from Microsoft or from Apple. Now, if there were some apps that were cloned and other original solutions, I would not have a problem. It is just that I grow tired of listening to linux zealots screaming about how horrible Microsoft is as they launch into KDE.
This is also why Linux will never become truly successful. If Linux were to be loaded on to every desktop and Microsoft was absorbed into that whole AOL-Time-Warner deal, the Linux community would not know what the hell to do. No one left to clone. My question is this: what will happen to Linux when it is done playing catch-up?
Gee, it looks earily familiar... Could it be... Microsoft Outlook for UNIX? The linux community needs to start developing some real software, not just mimicing what Microsoft has already done. For a community that continues to berate Microsoft, I find it extremely funny how all the software they use looks very familiar...
A few examples:
Grow some nuts and actually innovate.
The key here is that just about everyone on this site will preface their posts with IANAL (I am not a lawyer). What you need to find is someone who says IAAL. Lawyers get paid a lot of money to answer these questions and deal with these problems. Invest in one, otherwise you are going to lose.
One of the weakest points with GNU/Linux is that there is really no innovation in any part of the system. It can be argued that devFS, and a few other features to the kernel are new and unique to Linux, however you can probably count these features on your hand.
GNU/Linux (I am also including the applications bundled with the distributions) do not demonstrate any innovation. Every application is an effort to mimic something already developed in Microsoft Windows or another operating system. There are a few exceptions to this rule (scientific and server software), but for the most part this holds true. Another weakpoint is the XFree86 project. Instead of developing video drivers for the system, drivers are built specifically for the application. This means that we are going to be stuck with XFree86 forever. The Berlin Consortium has set out to solve problems in X and to add new features (Alpha transparency), but without drivers the project is destined to fail. And, if you say that X is "good enough," well "good enough" never succeeds unless it is the only option.
So, what then is the solution? I wish I knew it. Most professional organizations devote a lot of their resources to research & development. As far as i know, there are no research & development groups for GNU/Linux. This is beginning to change with the aid of coporate interests, but it will take years for this to happen. I mean we still do not have a journaling file system!
One other thing to notice, is that Bell Labs recognized in the 1980's that UNIX was riddled with problems, and so they began work on Plan 9, which later became Inferno. The only thing they took from UNIX was treating devices as a file system. So, when will the rest of the community realize that we are trying to repair something that needs to be redesigned.
After the conference, the organizers discovered the problem. Heat from the sun during the daytime caused convection currents to rise up from the roof of the building. This turbulent air diverted the beam and made it kle. It is also responsible for shimmering roads on a hot day and the wavy images when looking out above a hot radio."
I wonder how they address these issues. If they have not, I would never use this technology; it is expensive and unreliable. But, congratulations on the bandwidth!
Well, the kids who do this like to see service disrupted. Isn't this doing the job for them? They might even continue attacks so they get more people to protest by shutting down.
CFS is a solution, but not the best solution. It runs in user space (if I remember correctly), so a skilled script kiddie could read the memory contents and discover the key. Furthermore, it is pretty slow, especially if you are considering using large files (i.e. MP3 files). A better solution was posed by some Columbia grad students, called Cryptfs. Cryptfs builds on CFS and the later implementation TCFS. For an overview on the weaknesses of other encrypted file systems check out the Cryptfs home page. Unfortunately, I cannot find the implementation of Cryptfs.
Another solution is to use a loop-back encrypted file system. There is a how-to at linuxdoc.org.