You are not considering entrenchment. Much more here is required than simply producing a better product. Photoshop and CorelDraw are just as entrenched as Windows. Nothing is going to be able to compete them out easily. The only reason Microsoft has been able to enter some of these markets is because it has the financial ability to sell things at a loss (XBox) and wait out their competitors. If it was simply a matter of producing a better product they would have lost a long time ago.
You know this is a silly argument to be having. The GPL and BSD licenses offer the same freedoms (restrictions), just in different forms. Say the development for the core functionality of a program (the rendering engine for a browser, maybe) was funded by the federal government.
If it is released under the BSD license... A company can write an interface for it and sell it to the public. A number of other competing companies can do the same. If a bunch of free software supporters don't like the EULA's or the prices, they can write an interface and release it under their own license. Everybody is happy.
If it is released under the GPL license... Same thing, anybody who wants to can write an interface for it. The difference here is that the people who devote their time for free and distribute for free can rest easy knowing that their contributions will be shared freely and acknowledged by the free software community. A company that devotes its resources, but then wants to sell its changes (without providing source code) has to negotiate a new license with the government.
Now if the LGPL is used there is even more similarity. A company can write an interface completely separate of the LGPL'd code and sell it as a proprietary product. IIRC, they only need to provide source for the parts of the program that link directly to the LGPL'd code. They just can't make modifications to the LGPL'd code itself without open sourcing those modifications.
Like michael said, the license that is preferred will be different in different situations. I think the issue is not so much which license is better, but whether the government should be able to modify GPL'd software, releasing the modifications as required by the GPL. Corporate advocates do not want to see public funds supporting free software in this way. I, likewise, do not want to see public funds offsetting the development costs of for-profit businesses.
In short, OS X is a great OS because you don't have to spend time fucking with things you don't care about, you can spend your time actually doing your work, leaving you that much more time to play.
That depends entirely on what you are trying to do. Sure, most of the desktop related stuff just works, but what about mounting/home from an nfs server. Before you say "Just do this..." think about resource fork sensitive files. Mac OS X can mount an nfs partition, but as far as I know it can't transparently save/restore the resource forks which a lot of apps and some files need.
Don't get me wrong, I think Mac OS X is great. But it is not the be all and end all of operating systems. I like Linux because I can do what I want with it and it doesn't try to think for me, ever. Besides, I already have a computer and I know Linux. Why should I buy a new computer and go to a lot of trouble to learn a new OS (yes, I would have to learn) just because anti-aliasing works out of the box (a feature Gnome 2.2 will probably have anyway).
What???? Do you any idea what you are talking about?
Have you ever read Madison 10? The entire document is about the need for factions and the worry that there might not be enough. And what do you mean by forefathers? Last time I checked there weren't provisions for Republican and Democratic parties in the Constitution.
BTW, there were no democracies (at least in their current incarnation) in Europe in the Middle Ages. The only thing that even comes close is the Roman Republic which collapsed several centuries before the time period known as "the Middle Ages." So your first statement makes absolutely no sense.
Dude, read my post before you flame me. I am not supporting Microsoft at all. I am just saying that Microsoft hates modchips for good reason. If I were Microsoft, I would hate modchips too. But I am not Microsoft, and no, I don't think Microsoft should be able to shut down a company for doing something it doesn't like.
Errr... modding a piece of hardware is not the same thing as pirating. In the case of Eric's article, Eric wrote it, has his name on it, has his copyright on it, and controls distribution of it. In the case of hardware, the company owns the design specs for a unit and the right to produce/sell units to that spec, but they don't retain control over the individual units themselves. It is a completely different type of IP.
Now, let's say I paid Eric to write the article, and furthermore, let's say our agreement was that I would then own the article. Once he has written the article and I have paid for it he has to give it to me. I can choose to publish that article as is, or I can change the conclusion and publish the article. It is my prerogative because Eric no longer owns the article, I do.
It would be good to provide feedback to other companies to embrace such models like Sony has.
While I agree with this, keep in mind that Microsoft is selling XBoxen at a loss with the intention of making up for it by selling games.
The XBox is essentially just a crippled computer; it is a pc that can only run XBox games. By using a modchip and a Linux installation, the XBox suddenly becomes a full-fledged computer again.
If Linux can be made to run reliably enough on the XBox, the XBox suddenly becomes a great source of decent computing power for a really cheap price. The result: lots of people buy XBoxen but they don't buy games. Microsoft gets screwed big time.
I don't have any sympathy for Microsoft, but I can understand why they want to crack down on modchips and the XBox Linux Project.
I think rendering speed is directly related to content. Rendering what is essentially a text file (the MySQL manual) is a different game from rendering a page loaded with tables, forms, images, javascript, and CSS. Furthermore, rendering CSS is different from rendering nested tables and other related layout methods. I wouldn't be surprised if rendering IE javascript is different from rendering Netscape javascript.
So basically, I am sure browsers render different pages at different speeds due to the way their rendering engines work. It is kind of like the old color inkjet printers. Some of them could due full color pictures very well on the right paper, but when it came to black text they really sucked.
The issue of embriotic destruction is a religious one and should not be federally precluded.
The Catholic Church and various other religious groups may oppose the use of embryos in stem cell research, but that doesn't make it a "religious issue". It is a moral issue. And if you think the governing of the state should have nothing to do with morals then we should have let the Nazis win during World War II.
As has been said in another post, this is not about stem cell research, it is about using embryos for stem cell research. I do research of my own, so I have always been an advocate of scientific freedom. But it has also been my opinion that science can always find another way.
Embryos are a great source for stem cells and not difficult to obtain, culture, maintain, etc... That doesn't mean that there aren't other ways to get stem cells, though. Those other ways may not have some of the advantages embryos have, but they are just as useable and not as morally questionable.
It may be science, but that doesn't mean it should be free from moral considerations. Indeed, I certainly hope that is never the case. Otherwise we may someday find it suitable to do experiments on live human subjects, like death row prisoners or the critically disabled.
A newbie user isn't going to care about disk partitioning, and there are plenty of partitioning tools that can take care of ext2 partitions, fdisk included.
You do not need to compile most linux programs. Almost all are distributed with binaries, and, from the looks of it, the new click-n-run interface will make software installation a snap. Even if you did have to compile a program you don't need to know a programming language.
By Quicktime I assume you mean Sorenson Quicktime. Unless you are big on watching movie trailers this is not an issue for most people. If you do need to decode this format, though, there are beginnings of support for it in Xine, and until it is fully developed there is Crossover. A commercial Lindows may even come bundled with it.
Your last statement has no bearing on the issue whatsoever. The compiling issue has already been addressed, but who cares if everything is mounted? The GUI takes care of this for you transparently if you are talking about removable media or remote volumes. You don't have to mount anything manually.
My advice to the Windows user is to give it a try. Wait for the commercial version, though, and don't delete your Windows partition. If you have specific Windows needs, you probably won't be able to find support on Linux, yet. There are suitable office and groupware replacements. There are also some basic software packages for financing and image editing which aren't up to par with what professionals need, but are great for dabblers and/or home users. Games and CAD-like programs are still largely unsupported.
Now I read it as "we don't care about the consumer, we just want to take marketshare away from MS's customers".
Err... Since when have companies ever cared about their customers. Corporations care about stock prices and shareholders; customers are merely a means to an end.
Also, more people see the ability to buy non-Microsoft products as "Freedom from Microsoft" than you think. Sure, home pc buyers probably don't, but corporate IT departments with their eyes on the books certainly do, as do schools and government agencies. For the most part they hate buying from Microsoft and they wouldn't if they had an alternative.
Yeah, 'cuz whenever I suspect a shortcoming in the Linux kernel, I break out emacs and beat it back into shape. Right. After I correct any perceived shortcomings in emacs, that is.
Err...Ummm, this is an argument I see a lot and it just doesn't make sense. You may not be able to fix the problem yourself, but that is not the point. The point is that the decision to fix the problem is not left solely to a large corporation that only cares about the numbers on its ledger.
Sure, you probably aren't a software developer who is intimately familiar with all of the programs you use. Nevertheless, you are still much more likely to obtain a fix because the source is freely available. If you don't provide the fix (or pay someone to provide the fix), then somebody else probably will, provided it is a large enough problem. Furthermore, since open source developers tend to care more about the quality of their software than financial gain to be had (i.e: they don't have management and marketing breathing down their necks), the core developers of the project in question will probably fix the problem themselves and/or roll a patch into the main tree, again provided the problem is serious enough and the patch doesn't break anything.
Note: I use "problem is serious enough" as an umbrella term to refer to the number of people experiencing the problem, the type of problem (security, functionality, aesthetic, etc), the effect the problem has on other aspects of the program, etc...
Whoa there! Did you read the parent post or did you just see "edit config files by hand" and immediately jump on the "Linux can only be used by elitist computer snobs bandwagon." The parent was saying that gui config tools are GOOD. But he also said that the text config file should remain behind if you want to edit it by hand; I have to agree.
Due to their nature, gui config tools can only provide a subset of all possible configuration options and remain intuitive and easy to use. If you need to do some advanced configuration you are better off with a plain, well-commented, easy to read text file that you can edit with a simple text editor. If you insist on trying to make everything graphical you will end up with unmanageable behemoth that is the Windows registry.
Still, by biotech standards, this is the equivalent of doing science in the garage. At least the smallpox genome is ~25x bigger than polio.
Except that it still costs tens of thousands of dollars to run a lab capable of doing this. This isn't mix-and-match with chemicals from the local drugstore. It costs a lot of money to buy vectors, kits, reagents, perform sequencing, etc....
It is kind of funny to find comments like this on a site like slashdot. People will post a comment jumping all over congress for creating the DMCA (i.e: "Just because software CAN be used for illegal activities doesn't mean it should be illegal itself because it has a legitimate use."), and then they will say things like: "This is dangerous research because it can be used by terrorists to make biogents!" Sheesh.
What you are describing is cloning in the traditional sense. It is a technique the geneticists have been using for at least a few decades.
The "cloning" that took place to produce Dolly, the first human clone, and that the Japanese appear to want to use involves direct manipulation of two gametes (think eggs and sperm) to produce an embryo and then growing that embryo in a host.
There, of course, different moral considerations to be made for latter than for the former.
What the hell are you talking about? Oh wait, you don't know either.
Developing and testing vaccinations in animals is and has been a very common practice in medical research. It also has absolutely nothing to do with cloning.
All nuclear reactors in the US were built with negative temperature coefficients. They are the safest reactor designs in the world. Chernobyl had a positive temperature coeffecient, this is true, but the meltdown was due to operator error, not poor reactor design. And the US reactors, even with their failsafe designs are not completely immune to accidents.
It is also important to note that it is cheaper to build reactors with positive temperature coefficients. Reactors are built this way because of politics, not because scientists don't know what they are doing. BTW, there was plenty of anti-nuke propaganda in the 50's and 60's.
As for the bit about geneticists not knowing what they are doing... how do you think science works? Pop culture tends to lead people to believe that scientists sit around blackboards with nonsense mathematical equations surrounding them until they come to some epiphany and boom, we have a warp drive. That is not how science works people! Science is a lot of experimentation, trial-and-error, and guesswork. A lot of things are discovered by accident. Mapping of the human genome doesn't suddenly mean that we know everything about human genetics. There is a lot of stuff we don't know, and we are only going to be able to further our knowledge if we experiment and try new things.
You say that opposition should not be allowed to be disregarded as ignorance and superstition. Well, all I have to say is that maybe the opposition should come up with some intelligent and coherent arguments. It is easy to be disregarded as reactionary if you don't sound like you know what you are talking about.
This is actually more true than it appears. The "average consumer" doesn't differentiate between the OS and the hardware.
"Do you have a pc or a mac?"
"Is your architecture x86 or ppc?"
Which of these questions do you get asked more often? Most people don't really even think about the hardware (pc==windows, mac==macos). Hence the term "pc compatitble software". So for most people the choice to buy a computer comes down to "windows-based from your nearest OEM" or "macos-based from Apple"; they don't believe they have any other options.
Wow, I can't believe I have scrolled through this whole list of comments and haven't seen a post promoting Margaret Weis and/or Tracy Hickman yet. Their Dragonlance epic is/will be a classic. Admittedly most of the companion books aren't that great, but the original trilogy (Chronicles) and its later sequel (Legends) both written by Weis and Hickman are some of the best fantasy I have ever read. Then there is the Darksword Trilogy, and the very well done Death Gate Cycle. I think Weis and Hickman are going to be on the shelf for quite some time.
Re:These guys have got the right idea.
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Yes, because X is not nearly as bloated as a lot of people on/. like to believe. Also, GNOME + KDE may be large, but they obey the *nix philosophy in that they consist of many smaller specialized programs or libraries(printing, taskbar, clipboard, etc...). Kind of like a distribution. RedHat has grown over the years, but it isn't bloated. It just has more stuff for you to use if you want to and can uninstall if you don't.
The Windows desktop, on the other hand, is one big blob. You can opt to use a different desktop, if you want to go to enough trouble, but you can't, say, remove just the taskbar.
What makes you think these weaknesses are at all specific to open source software?
* There's no support built into the product. Yes, you can hire people to support it for you, but it's a seperate cost.
I have never heard of any software with "built-in" support. You ALWAYS have to pay extra for support options. Some companies are nicer than others when it comes to this, but you certainly don't get free support just because you buy commericial software. And companies that sell open-source software usually also sell support. You don't have to rely on third-parties.
* Similarly, There is no warrantee of any kind. If it breaks, you have no one to complain to: "you get what you pay for."
Again, I don't see how commercial software has any kind of warranty just because it is commercial. In fact, many EULA's expressly say that there is no warranty for the product. If you buy software with a bug that corrupts your database, you're screwed dude!
1. The programmers may suddenly decide they have no vested interest in continuing the project, or development may slow to a crawl (eg, mozilla), and there's nothing you can do about it.
This is a valid complaint, but commercial software is no exception. If a company decides to drop development and support of a product, there is nothing you can do about it. Here open source software does have an advantage, though. If a group decides to drop a project, or a company goes out of business (Eazel), the code is still available for other people to pick up, including in-house developers. It still sucks for you if development ceases, but at least you aren't stuck with an expensive proprietary program that you can only flush down the toilet.
I know that was a bit offtopic, but I couldn't let this comment go without rebuttal.
Well, I hate to sound old school, but I think a liberal arts education is the best way to become well-rounded.
I have always been of the opinion that, since American high schools do very little in this area, the first four years of college should have a major focus, but a non-specific curriculum. You shouldn't spend your undergraduate years focusing on nothing but robotics, for example, never taking any other course outside of your discipline. Instead take some history courses, some humanities, some english, and maybe some classics. You can major in something like physics. Then when you get to grad school, you focus on robotics.
I know that is contrary to many current opinions, but I think too many universities are producing too many one-sided individuals. People end up learning a trade, but not learning how to think critically or analyze intelligently. Well, those are just my thoughts.
My school is a Mac heavy school. I wanted to try to introduce Linux on some of the workstations, but the users had to be able to run MacOS applications. I hunted around looking at various dual-boot solutions, and I ended up finding Mac-on-Linux.
I played around with it for a little while on an old Beige G3 running Yellowdog. It had some neat features, including the ability to run full screen on a separate virtual console. So users could switch between MacOS and Linux with a keystroke.
My overall impression, though, was that it isn't ready for prime time. The speed was great, but the hardware support wasn't, and there were also several glitches, like the mouse cursor disappearing.
I hope the group working on this project keeps it up, because I think it is really cool, especially for people with old Macs. It just isn't ready for mainstream implementation.
That is not entirely true. Internet Explorer in Windows 98 and its successors can be functionally compared to Konqueror in KDE. They do essentially the same thing, integrate file management with web browsing and other internet-related services.
There is a fundamental difference, though. Konqueror is just another application. I can remove it from KDE, or I can choose not to install it in the first place. It is my undestanding that Internet Explorer is not just an application, it is integrated into the OS. I can't remove it or choose not to install it, and because of this it has certain advantages over other competing application like Netscape. Because it is integrated into the OS, Internet Explorer can be given an unfair advantage in performance over regular applications like Netscape, Mozilla, Opera, etc...
Of course since I can't remove it a whole plethora of security issues arise, but no need to get into that. What the users see as the result of a default install is not really the issue. The issues revolve around the ability to choose what software runs on your machine and the need to have a level playing field for competing applications.
"Easy, just recompile the kernel, reinstall it and reboot. DUH!"
Actually most of the time this isn't necessary. Usually all you have to do is load a kernel module. It is very simple and doesn't ever require a reboot. There are several graphical admin utilities available to do this for you.
"This Linux stuff is hard" "IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE!"
You haven't been around very long have you. Check out http://www.helixcode.com and http://www.mandrakesoft.com
I find Windows and MacOS to be much less intuitive and harder to use than Linux. You just have to get used to it. It is a different OS after all. I am not a developer or system administrator, BTW, I am just a regular user that types documents, plays games, and likes to get work done without doing a lot of fooling around.
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You are not considering entrenchment. Much more here is required than simply producing a better product. Photoshop and CorelDraw are just as entrenched as Windows. Nothing is going to be able to compete them out easily. The only reason Microsoft has been able to enter some of these markets is because it has the financial ability to sell things at a loss (XBox) and wait out their competitors. If it was simply a matter of producing a better product they would have lost a long time ago.
You know this is a silly argument to be having. The GPL and BSD licenses offer the same freedoms (restrictions), just in different forms. Say the development for the core functionality of a program (the rendering engine for a browser, maybe) was funded by the federal government.
If it is released under the BSD license...
A company can write an interface for it and sell it to the public. A number of other competing companies can do the same. If a bunch of free software supporters don't like the EULA's or the prices, they can write an interface and release it under their own license. Everybody is happy.
If it is released under the GPL license...
Same thing, anybody who wants to can write an interface for it. The difference here is that the people who devote their time for free and distribute for free can rest easy knowing that their contributions will be shared freely and acknowledged by the free software community. A company that devotes its resources, but then wants to sell its changes (without providing source code) has to negotiate a new license with the government.
Now if the LGPL is used there is even more similarity. A company can write an interface completely separate of the LGPL'd code and sell it as a proprietary product. IIRC, they only need to provide source for the parts of the program that link directly to the LGPL'd code. They just can't make modifications to the LGPL'd code itself without open sourcing those modifications.
Like michael said, the license that is preferred will be different in different situations. I think the issue is not so much which license is better, but whether the government should be able to modify GPL'd software, releasing the modifications as required by the GPL. Corporate advocates do not want to see public funds supporting free software in this way. I, likewise, do not want to see public funds offsetting the development costs of for-profit businesses.
In short, OS X is a great OS because you don't have to spend time fucking with things you don't care about, you can spend your time actually doing your work, leaving you that much more time to play.
/home from an nfs server. Before you say "Just do this..." think about resource fork sensitive files. Mac OS X can mount an nfs partition, but as far as I know it can't transparently save/restore the resource forks which a lot of apps and some files need.
That depends entirely on what you are trying to do. Sure, most of the desktop related stuff just works, but what about mounting
Don't get me wrong, I think Mac OS X is great. But it is not the be all and end all of operating systems. I like Linux because I can do what I want with it and it doesn't try to think for me, ever. Besides, I already have a computer and I know Linux. Why should I buy a new computer and go to a lot of trouble to learn a new OS (yes, I would have to learn) just because anti-aliasing works out of the box (a feature Gnome 2.2 will probably have anyway).
What???? Do you any idea what you are talking about?
Have you ever read Madison 10? The entire document is about the need for factions and the worry that there might not be enough. And what do you mean by forefathers? Last time I checked there weren't provisions for Republican and Democratic parties in the Constitution.
BTW, there were no democracies (at least in their current incarnation) in Europe in the Middle Ages. The only thing that even comes close is the Roman Republic which collapsed several centuries before the time period known as "the Middle Ages." So your first statement makes absolutely no sense.
Dude, read my post before you flame me. I am not supporting Microsoft at all. I am just saying that Microsoft hates modchips for good reason. If I were Microsoft, I would hate modchips too. But I am not Microsoft, and no, I don't think Microsoft should be able to shut down a company for doing something it doesn't like.
Errr... modding a piece of hardware is not the same thing as pirating. In the case of Eric's article, Eric wrote it, has his name on it, has his copyright on it, and controls distribution of it. In the case of hardware, the company owns the design specs for a unit and the right to produce/sell units to that spec, but they don't retain control over the individual units themselves. It is a completely different type of IP.
Now, let's say I paid Eric to write the article, and furthermore, let's say our agreement was that I would then own the article. Once he has written the article and I have paid for it he has to give it to me. I can choose to publish that article as is, or I can change the conclusion and publish the article. It is my prerogative because Eric no longer owns the article, I do.
It would be good to provide feedback to other companies to embrace such models like Sony has.
While I agree with this, keep in mind that Microsoft is selling XBoxen at a loss with the intention of making up for it by selling games.
The XBox is essentially just a crippled computer; it is a pc that can only run XBox games. By using a modchip and a Linux installation, the XBox suddenly becomes a full-fledged computer again.
If Linux can be made to run reliably enough on the XBox, the XBox suddenly becomes a great source of decent computing power for a really cheap price. The result: lots of people buy XBoxen but they don't buy games. Microsoft gets screwed big time.
I don't have any sympathy for Microsoft, but I can understand why they want to crack down on modchips and the XBox Linux Project.
I think rendering speed is directly related to content. Rendering what is essentially a text file (the MySQL manual) is a different game from rendering a page loaded with tables, forms, images, javascript, and CSS. Furthermore, rendering CSS is different from rendering nested tables and other related layout methods. I wouldn't be surprised if rendering IE javascript is different from rendering Netscape javascript.
So basically, I am sure browsers render different pages at different speeds due to the way their rendering engines work. It is kind of like the old color inkjet printers. Some of them could due full color pictures very well on the right paper, but when it came to black text they really sucked.
be federally precluded.
The Catholic Church and various other religious groups may oppose the use of embryos in stem cell research, but that doesn't make it a "religious issue". It is a moral issue. And if you think the governing of the state should have nothing to do with morals then we should have let the Nazis win during World War II.
As has been said in another post, this is not about stem cell research, it is about using embryos for stem cell research. I do research of my own, so I have always been an advocate of scientific freedom. But it has also been my opinion that science can always find another way.
Embryos are a great source for stem cells and not difficult to obtain, culture, maintain, etc... That doesn't mean that there aren't other ways to get stem cells, though. Those other ways may not have some of the advantages embryos have, but they are just as useable and not as morally questionable.
It may be science, but that doesn't mean it should be free from moral considerations. Indeed, I certainly hope that is never the case. Otherwise we may someday find it suitable to do experiments on live human subjects, like death row prisoners or the critically disabled.
Dude, what the hell are you talking about?
A newbie user isn't going to care about disk partitioning, and there are plenty of partitioning tools that can take care of ext2 partitions, fdisk included.
You do not need to compile most linux programs. Almost all are distributed with binaries, and, from the looks of it, the new click-n-run interface will make software installation a snap. Even if you did have to compile a program you don't need to know a programming language.
By Quicktime I assume you mean Sorenson Quicktime. Unless you are big on watching movie trailers this is not an issue for most people. If you do need to decode this format, though, there are beginnings of support for it in Xine, and until it is fully developed there is Crossover. A commercial Lindows may even come bundled with it.
Your last statement has no bearing on the issue whatsoever. The compiling issue has already been addressed, but who cares if everything is mounted? The GUI takes care of this for you transparently if you are talking about removable media or remote volumes. You don't have to mount anything manually.
My advice to the Windows user is to give it a try. Wait for the commercial version, though, and don't delete your Windows partition. If you have specific Windows needs, you probably won't be able to find support on Linux, yet. There are suitable office and groupware replacements. There are also some basic software packages for financing and image editing which aren't up to par with what professionals need, but are great for dabblers and/or home users. Games and CAD-like programs are still largely unsupported.
Err... Since when have companies ever cared about their customers. Corporations care about stock prices and shareholders; customers are merely a means to an end.
Also, more people see the ability to buy non-Microsoft products as "Freedom from Microsoft" than you think. Sure, home pc buyers probably don't, but corporate IT departments with their eyes on the books certainly do, as do schools and government agencies. For the most part they hate buying from Microsoft and they wouldn't if they had an alternative.
Yeah, 'cuz whenever I suspect a shortcoming in the Linux kernel, I break out emacs and beat it back into shape. Right. After I correct any perceived shortcomings in emacs, that is.
Err...Ummm, this is an argument I see a lot and it just doesn't make sense. You may not be able to fix the problem yourself, but that is not the point. The point is that the decision to fix the problem is not left solely to a large corporation that only cares about the numbers on its ledger.
Sure, you probably aren't a software developer who is intimately familiar with all of the programs you use. Nevertheless, you are still much more likely to obtain a fix because the source is freely available. If you don't provide the fix (or pay someone to provide the fix), then somebody else probably will, provided it is a large enough problem. Furthermore, since open source developers tend to care more about the quality of their software than financial gain to be had (i.e: they don't have management and marketing breathing down their necks), the core developers of the project in question will probably fix the problem themselves and/or roll a patch into the main tree, again provided the problem is serious enough and the patch doesn't break anything.
Note: I use "problem is serious enough" as an umbrella term to refer to the number of people experiencing the problem, the type of problem (security, functionality, aesthetic, etc), the effect the problem has on other aspects of the program, etc...
Whoa there! Did you read the parent post or did you just see "edit config files by hand" and immediately jump on the "Linux can only be used by elitist computer snobs bandwagon." The parent was saying that gui config tools are GOOD. But he also said that the text config file should remain behind if you want to edit it by hand; I have to agree.
Due to their nature, gui config tools can only provide a subset of all possible configuration options and remain intuitive and easy to use. If you need to do some advanced configuration you are better off with a plain, well-commented, easy to read text file that you can edit with a simple text editor. If you insist on trying to make everything graphical you will end up with unmanageable behemoth that is the Windows registry.
Still, by biotech standards, this is the equivalent of doing science in the garage. At least the smallpox genome is ~25x bigger than polio.
Except that it still costs tens of thousands of dollars to run a lab capable of doing this. This isn't mix-and-match with chemicals from the local drugstore. It costs a lot of money to buy vectors, kits, reagents, perform sequencing, etc....
It is kind of funny to find comments like this on a site like slashdot. People will post a comment jumping all over congress for creating the DMCA (i.e: "Just because software CAN be used for illegal activities doesn't mean it should be illegal itself because it has a legitimate use."), and then they will say things like: "This is dangerous research because it can be used by terrorists to make biogents!" Sheesh.
Ummm...no.
What you are describing is cloning in the traditional sense. It is a technique the geneticists have been using for at least a few decades.
The "cloning" that took place to produce Dolly, the first human clone, and that the Japanese appear to want to use involves direct manipulation of two gametes (think eggs and sperm) to produce an embryo and then growing that embryo in a host.
There, of course, different moral considerations to be made for latter than for the former.
What the hell are you talking about? Oh wait, you don't know either.
Developing and testing vaccinations in animals is and has been a very common practice in medical research. It also has absolutely nothing to do with cloning.
All nuclear reactors in the US were built with negative temperature coefficients. They are the safest reactor designs in the world. Chernobyl had a positive temperature coeffecient, this is true, but the meltdown was due to operator error, not poor reactor design. And the US reactors, even with their failsafe designs are not completely immune to accidents.
It is also important to note that it is cheaper to build reactors with positive temperature coefficients. Reactors are built this way because of politics, not because scientists don't know what they are doing. BTW, there was plenty of anti-nuke propaganda in the 50's and 60's.
As for the bit about geneticists not knowing what they are doing... how do you think science works? Pop culture tends to lead people to believe that scientists sit around blackboards with nonsense mathematical equations surrounding them until they come to some epiphany and boom, we have a warp drive. That is not how science works people! Science is a lot of experimentation, trial-and-error, and guesswork. A lot of things are discovered by accident. Mapping of the human genome doesn't suddenly mean that we know everything about human genetics. There is a lot of stuff we don't know, and we are only going to be able to further our knowledge if we experiment and try new things.
You say that opposition should not be allowed to be disregarded as ignorance and superstition. Well, all I have to say is that maybe the opposition should come up with some intelligent and coherent arguments. It is easy to be disregarded as reactionary if you don't sound like you know what you are talking about.
This is actually more true than it appears. The "average consumer" doesn't differentiate between the OS and the hardware.
"Do you have a pc or a mac?"
"Is your architecture x86 or ppc?"
Which of these questions do you get asked more often? Most people don't really even think about the hardware (pc==windows, mac==macos). Hence the term "pc compatitble software". So for most people the choice to buy a computer comes down to "windows-based from your nearest OEM" or "macos-based from Apple"; they don't believe they have any other options.
Wow, I can't believe I have scrolled through this whole list of comments and haven't seen a post promoting Margaret Weis and/or Tracy Hickman yet. Their Dragonlance epic is/will be a classic. Admittedly most of the companion books aren't that great, but the original trilogy (Chronicles) and its later sequel (Legends) both written by Weis and Hickman are some of the best fantasy I have ever read. Then there is the Darksword Trilogy, and the very well done Death Gate Cycle. I think Weis and Hickman are going to be on the shelf for quite some time.
Yes, because X is not nearly as bloated as a lot of people on /. like to believe. Also, GNOME + KDE may be large, but they obey the *nix philosophy in that they consist of many smaller specialized programs or libraries(printing, taskbar, clipboard, etc...). Kind of like a distribution. RedHat has grown over the years, but it isn't bloated. It just has more stuff for you to use if you want to and can uninstall if you don't.
The Windows desktop, on the other hand, is one big blob. You can opt to use a different desktop, if you want to go to enough trouble, but you can't, say, remove just the taskbar.
Ok, I have to reply to this...
What makes you think these weaknesses are at all specific to open source software?
* There's no support built into the product. Yes, you can hire people to support it for you, but it's a seperate cost.
I have never heard of any software with "built-in" support. You ALWAYS have to pay extra for support options. Some companies are nicer than others when it comes to this, but you certainly don't get free support just because you buy commericial software. And companies that sell open-source software usually also sell support. You don't have to rely on third-parties.
* Similarly, There is no warrantee of any kind. If it breaks, you have no one to complain to: "you get what you pay for."
Again, I don't see how commercial software has any kind of warranty just because it is commercial. In fact, many EULA's expressly say that there is no warranty for the product. If you buy software with a bug that corrupts your database, you're screwed dude!
1. The programmers may suddenly decide they have no vested interest in continuing the project, or development may slow to a crawl (eg, mozilla), and there's nothing you can do about it.
This is a valid complaint, but commercial software is no exception. If a company decides to drop development and support of a product, there is nothing you can do about it. Here open source software does have an advantage, though. If a group decides to drop a project, or a company goes out of business (Eazel), the code is still available for other people to pick up, including in-house developers. It still sucks for you if development ceases, but at least you aren't stuck with an expensive proprietary program that you can only flush down the toilet.
I know that was a bit offtopic, but I couldn't let this comment go without rebuttal.
Well, I hate to sound old school, but I think a liberal arts education is the best way to become well-rounded.
I have always been of the opinion that, since American high schools do very little in this area, the first four years of college should have a major focus, but a non-specific curriculum. You shouldn't spend your undergraduate years focusing on nothing but robotics, for example, never taking any other course outside of your discipline. Instead take some history courses, some humanities, some english, and maybe some classics. You can major in something like physics. Then when you get to grad school, you focus on robotics.
I know that is contrary to many current opinions, but I think too many universities are producing too many one-sided individuals. People end up learning a trade, but not learning how to think critically or analyze intelligently. Well, those are just my thoughts.
My school is a Mac heavy school. I wanted to try to introduce Linux on some of the workstations, but the users had to be able to run MacOS applications. I hunted around looking at various dual-boot solutions, and I ended up finding Mac-on-Linux.
I played around with it for a little while on an old Beige G3 running Yellowdog. It had some neat features, including the ability to run full screen on a separate virtual console. So users could switch between MacOS and Linux with a keystroke.
My overall impression, though, was that it isn't ready for prime time. The speed was great, but the hardware support wasn't, and there were also several glitches, like the mouse cursor disappearing.
I hope the group working on this project keeps it up, because I think it is really cool, especially for people with old Macs. It just isn't ready for mainstream implementation.
That is not entirely true. Internet Explorer in Windows 98 and its successors can be functionally compared to Konqueror in KDE. They do essentially the same thing, integrate file management with web browsing and other internet-related services.
There is a fundamental difference, though. Konqueror is just another application. I can remove it from KDE, or I can choose not to install it in the first place. It is my undestanding that Internet Explorer is not just an application, it is integrated into the OS. I can't remove it or choose not to install it, and because of this it has certain advantages over other competing application like Netscape. Because it is integrated into the OS, Internet Explorer can be given an unfair advantage in performance over regular applications like Netscape, Mozilla, Opera, etc...
Of course since I can't remove it a whole plethora of security issues arise, but no need to get into that. What the users see as the result of a default install is not really the issue. The issues revolve around the ability to choose what software runs on your machine and the need to have a level playing field for competing applications.
sigh.... another Winblows troll
"Easy, just recompile the kernel, reinstall it and reboot. DUH!"
Actually most of the time this isn't necessary. Usually all you have to do is load a kernel module. It is very simple and doesn't ever require a reboot. There are several graphical admin utilities available to do this for you.
"This Linux stuff is hard" "IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE!"
You haven't been around very long have you. Check out http://www.helixcode.com and http://www.mandrakesoft.com I find Windows and MacOS to be much less intuitive and harder to use than Linux. You just have to get used to it. It is a different OS after all. I am not a developer or system administrator, BTW, I am just a regular user that types documents, plays games, and likes to get work done without doing a lot of fooling around.