Companies implementing online activations, hardware keys, etc. sounds like a huge opening for OSS to make some real inroads.
Such things would be enough of an irritant that everyday people would excuse some of the 'foibles' inherent in some of the current Open Source offerings (Where's Internet Explorer? No Outlook Express? OMG, I need a warzed Photoshop!) and drive further adoption.
Turning the devils tools against him is always a fun thing to do.
My guess is Linus would answer "No" to your question.
Linus had a very nice life - hacking on what he wants how he wants, when he wants and where he wants. He's healthy, warm, clothed and fed, as are his wife and children.
Let me tell you this: if she runs IE, it's not my fault. It's her computer. If I don't realize what she's doing, it's my fault for not invading her privacy and that's where that ends.
Hunh? I discuss these things with my bride. Such a trivial thing should not ba a matter of privacy. My wife knows why Firefox is a better browser, why I removed WebShots and why the computer is mostly booted into Linux. She realises I'm the sysadmin, an expert in my field, and is willing to trust my judgement, seeing as we're married and all.
I respectfully submit that if you can't relate such a simple thing to your life partner, there's something of a communications issue there.
He has a CS degree, runs Linux himself and still let(sic) his wife surfing the web with IE? What went wrong? We all now that alternatives exist.
Let his wife? Let?!?!?! You sir, are obviously not married.
Besides, we still have to deal with IE only websites, which perhaps his wife has to use in her career? You've made a faulty assumption, friend.
The only fault I can find with the author is that he didn't realise what his wife was dealing with in the first place. She should be using Firefox for browsing, unless she needs an ActiveX control for a particular site for some reason.
We know Windows has these problems, so we should take whatever steps we can to mitigate the risks when we need to use that OS.
As someone whose been burned^Wjaded^Wexposed to Microsoft innovations before, I have to ask the following:
1. How secure is this? IOW, does it rely on anything at all other than JavaScript on the client side, or does it hook into the OS on some level? If it does, how well is it isolated from the more dangerous bits in the OS?
2. If it does require anything other than JS - even if it does only require JS - is it Windows only, or have our good friends at Microsoft realised why a goodly portion of the tech community is, ummm, hesitant to accept thier 'vision' of what computing should be?
If XmlHttpRequest (Capitalised as it is, one could tell right away that it was spawned in Redmond) is all that and a bag of chips, how do us non=MS type enjoy it?
Can it to my homework and clean my room for me yet?
Sigh.
I sincerely hope that the new ASIMO also includes a "Smack in the back of the head for being a dumbass" spell checker and a "Put a whuppin' on this kids sorry, lazy ass" module as well.
Whoa. I'm sorry friend, but this post just doesn't make sense at all to me.
Pei Wei may not have persuaded a patent, but it still sounds amusingly like a we-stole-it-from-someone else defense.
You mean Microsoft stole embedded objects not from Eolas, but from Viola? I don't think so - I think that doing this in a web browser, given current coding techniques, is obvious and trivial, which are the two tests that must be passed before an object or process can recieve a patent. If anything, Microsoft basically stole it from the vast community of developers who were doing this already - it was using current industry methods and research, not some new whiz-bang algorithm.
Relating to the previously posted Patent overhaul article, there needs to be a way to compensate prior art originators when their insights makes corporations millions down stream.
Hunh? If prior art exists, the patent should be refused - yet another test that has to be passed before a patent is supposed to be granted. Prior Art origionators should be compensated by being co-patenters - IOW, MegaCorp says to Joe Developer "We want to patent your idea and develop it more - sign here and you get $non_trivial percentage." in order to get the patent in the first place. If Joe Developer refuses - no patent, due to the prior art.
Maybe if this were the case people and corporations wouldn't be so rabid to patent every little thought no matter how trivial.
The granting of patents on trivial thoughts/processes/things in order to fleece money from the public says the system is broken like nothing else.
But of course then lawyers would switch to suing who had first prior art rather then first valid patent.
I cannot imagine a more nightmarish scenario than that. I can not see any legal way for a patent holder to sue a prior art origionator and have it stick. if any judge allowed this to even appear on a docket, our judicial system would be even more broken than the patent system. Lets hope it never, ever gets to that.
I used to work as a technical writer for a large company, and they kept us busy. It's fine to hire engineers who are good at what they do, even if they don't have great writing skills - as log as you also hire someone to decipher and rewrite everything that comes out of the engineering dept.
IMHO, if an engineer is imprecise in his language, in any medium, he will be imprecise in other more important areas. This is especially true for a software engineer/developer/code monkey since C, Java, Perl and Python are but different languages where you are trying to speak to a machine, not a human. A Technical Writer shouldn't have to do much more than parse the comments in the code, provide helpful diagrams and give a higher level view of how to use the software. Using precise, thought out language in all your communications means that precision will spill over into your code. As an example, here you are espousing that you just need someone like yourself - a communications expert - to correct the errors of others and you make a simple spelling mistake (don't have great writing skills - as log as you also hire someone to) which gives your credibility a hit. Allowing yourself the luxury of a native English speaker being able to over-look that error and still unuderstand you is what starts the downward spiral.
As far as the article goes, this is the issue - people let thier communications skills atrophy. They take it for granted others are able to correct thier 'misteaks'[1] or will reply back with a "Hunh?", and the idea can eventually be parsed out of the conversation. It's a question of discipline, of placing a real value of your communications ability and keeping that ability at its peak.
I read over every e-mail I before I click send and ask "Do I sound lucid, professional and do I actually communicate my idea well"? It takes a bit longer to do, but it also cuts down on mis-communication.
Soko [1] Taken from that old poster that says "Know Misteaks Aloud!"
Whenever I can, I link to my friends book - which was featured on Slashdot last month. I do keep things on-topic of course - I don't want to shill his book, just point out every instance where it would be helpful - like "Clearing viruses from Windows? It's easy with Knoppix - go get this book to show you how." in respone to a lament about a tough to get rid of infection.
Since I'm advocating a purchase, I am advertising, but moreover trying to be helpful - to my fellow/.ers as well as my friend.
A Knoppix CD and this book are all you need. There's a hack on there for virus spyware removal from Windows. Trust me, it's easier to treat an un-concious patient than one that's awake and trying to stop you from helping.
An armour-clad face appears at the top of the rampart. It speaks in an outrageous French accent.
Soldier: 'Allo! 'Oo is it? Arthur: It is I, King Arthur, and these are my knights of WIPO. Whose castle is this? Soldier: This is the castle of my master, Richarde de Stallman. Arthur: Go and tell your master that we have been charged by WIPO with a sacred quest. If he will give us food and shelter for the night, he can join us in our quest for the Holy Copyright. Soldier: Well, I'll ask 'im, but I don't think 'e'll be very keen-- 'e's already got one, you see? Arthur: What? Lancelot: He says they've already *got* one! Arthur: (confused) Are you *sure* he's got one? Soldier: Oh yes, it's ver' naahs. ets called de GEE PEE HELL.(to the other soldiers:) I told 'em we've already *got* one! (they snicker) Arthur: (taken a bit off balance) Well... ah, um... Can we come up and have a look? Soldier: Of course not! You are Capitaliste types. Arthur: Well, what are you then? Soldier: (Indignant) Ah'm French! Why do you think I have this out-rrrageous accent, you silly king?! Arthur: What are you doing in *WIPO*? Soldier: Mind your own business! Arthur: If you will not show us the Copyright, we shall take your castle by force! Soldier: You don't frighten us, WIPO pig-dogs! Go and boil your bottoms, son of a silly person! Ah blow my nose at you, so-called "Arthur Keeeng"! You and all your silly English Knnnnnnnn-ighuts!!!
(the soldier proceeds to bang on his helmet with his hands and stick out his tongue at the knights, making strange noises.)
Lancelot: What a strange person. Arthur: (getting mad) Now look here, my good ma-- Soldier: Ah don' wanna talk to you no more, you empty-headed animal food-trough wiper! Ah fart in your general direction! Your mother was a hamster, and your father smelt of elderberries! Galahad: Is there someone else up there we can talk to? Soldier: No!! Now go away, or I shall taunt you a second time!
(Yeah, the Monty Python schtick is a little old, but boy did it fit under the parent nicely!)
This is why a system that prints a paper ballot is the answer, IMHO.
That removes the computer from the equation - what you touch/click/press/wiggle over isn't your vote(s) - what the machine prints in clear, legible type on a paper ballot is. IOW, vote, get printed ballot of vote, check that your ballot is what you want, drop ballot in box.
As well, we all know that you can use one screen for one question, ask questions in order, and can provide means to skip over some of them. (ie press your candidate then press ok, or press skip to not vote in this race) The voter gets printed ballots for each question they've been asked. Print big numbers on the back to indicate what the ballot is for (Ballot One - President). Viola - we have an auditable system that should make things easier for the voter to cast the vote they want, since they're only answering a single question at a time and an easy means to verify that they have indeed done so. The back end would end up with something that's easy to count and re-count. (Plain black/white text is easy for OCR, and humans, to read)
This simplifies the process, should make it easier to keep what you're voting for straight and provides it's own audit trail.
Dude. Sounds like the live Linux CD is payback for my father in-law. Knoppix for him it is.
Soko
Re:Shoot your marketing department.
on
Sun-isms Debunked
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
I know all of this. Kerb5, LDAP, blah blah. I even know that the field they use in Kerb5 was reserved for "vendor implementations" or somesuch. AD is actually pretty good tech, it's just I don't want to drink the kool-aid unless I have to.
The irksome part is that I need Windows Servers in order to have full functionality with my Windows clients, and my other client and server systems (Mac OS/X, Solaris and Fedora) are then essentially second class citizens - to wit:
You can't apply GPOs to Linux boxes, obviously, but you can have them in the domain -- and have them work normally.
Why the hell can't I use GPOs in Linux? For no other reason than Microsoft wants to own my architecture. IOW, AD is not just a contribution to making my systems work better, easier and more reliably, it's also a marketing tool for the rest of Microsofts software stack. It's like that with every Microsoft product too.
Based on my experience with core MS technologies, Microsoft wants to weedle it's way into being the centre piece of your architecture whether you like it or not, not just another system that you can use at your discretion to do cool things with for all of your systems. That bothers me to no end.
Soko
Shoot your marketing department.
on
Sun-isms Debunked
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
At the end of the launch event Jonathan Schwartz made an impromptu speech; I didn't hear most of it, as I was too far away, but he did end his comments with something about Slashdotters. I ambled over to Schwartz and said, "If anyone here is going to get an article onto Slashdot, it's probably going to be me (since NewsForge and Slashdot are both part of OSTG). Tell me what you'd like Slashdot readers to know."
"Tell them that we're returning to our roots," Schwartz said, referring to the company's renewed focus on the Solaris operating environment.
"And we want developers back on our side. If there's more for us to do, we'll go do it," McNealy added. It was the first time all day that I felt that the two had broken character and simply told me what was on their minds.
As a long time Slashdotter who has had to use and deploy Solaris on occasion, let me tell Mr. McNealy and Mr. Scwartz what's on my mind about Sun. I know they'll be reading, so here goes:
First, cut the marketing BS. No press wars with Redhat, IBM or HP. No trumped up, spin laden press releases about Solaris 10. I don't even want to see a comaprison paper. Give me a technical white paper about what the OS can do and STFU - I then can see for myself whether Solaris 10 is a good or great OS. I can also then decide for myself if it's a good fit in my architecture. Most on Slashdot are technically adept - that's why we can run and support Linux or *BSD without Redhat's help. It's the PHBs who require that kind of hand holding, not us. (Hey, I just invented a new comic book villian - Spin Laden, the Marketing Terrarist!)
Open your dev process, as well as your code. I don't (necessarily) mean provide CVS access, I mean accept and credit quality patches to the code base. Open code would mean we can fix our own damned stuff when things in Solaris break and get our jobs done, while benefiting anyone else who has the same bug - we tend to like to share the fact we're smart enough to repair someone else's broken code. For large contributions, pay the contributor and pay him well.
Stay away from the rest of my systems unless I ask you in. No embedded Java in the OS, no Sun only core stuff (think Microsoft and Kerberos 5), just a big box of properly impelmented tools that I can use to make systems work, work well and work reliably. Your products will be sharing my network with other vendors, so play nice whenever you can. If that means re-writing some Solaris code to put into linux so it interoperates properly and GPLing it, so be it. That way I know that you're concerned about me and not just "maximizing value".
Contriubute to the industry. Some of us think RMS is a real looney, but we have the utmost respect him and his contributions. Mr. Gates, IMHO, does not contribute to the general cause or making my life easier unless there's a price tag, be it in dollars or having to shut out one of his colleagues - he calls them compeditors - from my architecture. Real contributions move the whole industry forward, and provide new opportunities for everyone to make a little $_CURRENCY, not just a select few.
Censure that person who 'escorted' out the interviewer. We like plain talk. We know you have fiduciary responsibilities, and most of us try to take those into account, but trying to hide what you really want to say doesn't wash. If you hate linux or love it, say so, and say why - with no spin on the matter. Speaking of plain talk, you'll get some from us. We know you're the head of a big, powerful Corp., but you should be willing to learn from us. When it comes to putting the tech on the floor, we are your betters, not your underlings.
Lastly, put your engineering department off limits to marketing personnel. OFF-LIMITS. Spin Laden should be shot on sight (by a Nerf gun, of course) if he dares tread where something cool is being made. No "That's a killer system, and we can leverage it to sell..." baloney please. I'm still loathe to implement AD because it's actually proprietary technology, even though it would make administrating my network a little easier.
As an IT mangager type, I just cringe when I see someone who has installed a new screen saver and/or tool bars. I do my best to not be overbearing to my user community, but there comes a point where you have to say "Enough." I've gone through more than enough machines removing malware and spyware and then explained to the luser who abuses the machine that they're breaking things by installing un-approved apps, and next time I get out the LART.
The machine is there to help them get work done, not entertain them. It's like thier work area - we don't allow objectionable posters or dangerous items as decor, nor do we allow them to leave thier area in a dangerous clutter, so why should we allow them to do approximately the same thing to thier computer? It makes no business sense to do so. (BTW, the above analogy seems to actually sink in to a semi-intelligent luser's skull without applying deadly pressure - best clue I've found for them so far.) It's all about instilling the right culture into your organisation.
I'd love for something like the articles subject to come to fruition. It would be easier to manage, users would benefit from little to no down time as well as a consistent desktop environment, and I could approve all apps before they're installed, installed once and installed correctly. Hell, I'd allow and even deploy MP3 players, some games and even the coolest screen savers I could. I want them to have as rich an experience as possible, but I want that experience to be safe and inexpensive to use - and the article's subject seems to have a plausible chance of providing just that.
Slashdot Mirror
(merry fucking whatever, everyone!)
D00d.
The proper BOFH greeting at this festive tim eof (yes, intentional) year is M. F. C..
Happy Holidays to you and yours, may you triumph over the lusers.
Soko
Ummmm.... so?
Companies implementing online activations, hardware keys, etc. sounds like a huge opening for OSS to make some real inroads.
Such things would be enough of an irritant that everyday people would excuse some of the 'foibles' inherent in some of the current Open Source offerings (Where's Internet Explorer? No Outlook Express? OMG, I need a warzed Photoshop!) and drive further adoption.
Turning the devils tools against him is always a fun thing to do.
Soko
My guess is Linus would answer "No" to your question.
Linus had a very nice life - hacking on what he wants how he wants, when he wants and where he wants. He's healthy, warm, clothed and fed, as are his wife and children.
Some people just don't need any more than that.
Soko
My wife has a mind of her own.
As does mine, thankfully.
Let me tell you this: if she runs IE, it's not my fault. It's her computer. If I don't realize what she's doing, it's my fault for not invading her privacy and that's where that ends.
Hunh? I discuss these things with my bride. Such a trivial thing should not ba a matter of privacy. My wife knows why Firefox is a better browser, why I removed WebShots and why the computer is mostly booted into Linux. She realises I'm the sysadmin, an expert in my field, and is willing to trust my judgement, seeing as we're married and all.
I respectfully submit that if you can't relate such a simple thing to your life partner, there's something of a communications issue there.
Thank $DEITY I have no such problems.
Soko
He has a CS degree, runs Linux himself and still let(sic) his wife surfing the web with IE? What went wrong? We all now that alternatives exist.
Let his wife? Let?!?!?! You sir, are obviously not married.
Besides, we still have to deal with IE only websites, which perhaps his wife has to use in her career? You've made a faulty assumption, friend.
The only fault I can find with the author is that he didn't realise what his wife was dealing with in the first place. She should be using Firefox for browsing, unless she needs an ActiveX control for a particular site for some reason.
We know Windows has these problems, so we should take whatever steps we can to mitigate the risks when we need to use that OS.
Soko
OK, this is cool. From Microsoft, you say?
As someone whose been burned^Wjaded^Wexposed to Microsoft innovations before, I have to ask the following:
1. How secure is this? IOW, does it rely on anything at all other than JavaScript on the client side, or does it hook into the OS on some level? If it does, how well is it isolated from the more dangerous bits in the OS?
2. If it does require anything other than JS - even if it does only require JS - is it Windows only, or have our good friends at Microsoft realised why a goodly portion of the tech community is, ummm, hesitant to accept thier 'vision' of what computing should be?
If XmlHttpRequest (Capitalised as it is, one could tell right away that it was spawned in Redmond) is all that and a bag of chips, how do us non=MS type enjoy it?
Soko
Can it to my homework and clean my room for me yet?
Sigh.
I sincerely hope that the new ASIMO also includes a "Smack in the back of the head for being a dumbass" spell checker and a "Put a whuppin' on this kids sorry, lazy ass" module as well.
Soko
Whoa. I'm sorry friend, but this post just doesn't make sense at all to me.
Pei Wei may not have persuaded a patent, but it still sounds amusingly like a we-stole-it-from-someone else defense.
You mean Microsoft stole embedded objects not from Eolas, but from Viola? I don't think so - I think that doing this in a web browser, given current coding techniques, is obvious and trivial, which are the two tests that must be passed before an object or process can recieve a patent. If anything, Microsoft basically stole it from the vast community of developers who were doing this already - it was using current industry methods and research, not some new whiz-bang algorithm.
Relating to the previously posted Patent overhaul article, there needs to be a way to compensate prior art originators when their insights makes corporations millions down stream.
Hunh? If prior art exists, the patent should be refused - yet another test that has to be passed before a patent is supposed to be granted. Prior Art origionators should be compensated by being co-patenters - IOW, MegaCorp says to Joe Developer "We want to patent your idea and develop it more - sign here and you get $non_trivial percentage." in order to get the patent in the first place. If Joe Developer refuses - no patent, due to the prior art.
Maybe if this were the case people and corporations wouldn't be so rabid to patent every little thought no matter how trivial.
The granting of patents on trivial thoughts/processes/things in order to fleece money from the public says the system is broken like nothing else.
But of course then lawyers would switch to suing who had first prior art rather then first valid patent.
I cannot imagine a more nightmarish scenario than that. I can not see any legal way for a patent holder to sue a prior art origionator and have it stick. if any judge allowed this to even appear on a docket, our judicial system would be even more broken than the patent system. Lets hope it never, ever gets to that.
Soko
I used to work as a technical writer for a large company, and they kept us busy. It's fine to hire engineers who are good at what they do, even if they don't have great writing skills - as log as you also hire someone to decipher and rewrite everything that comes out of the engineering dept.
IMHO, if an engineer is imprecise in his language, in any medium, he will be imprecise in other more important areas. This is especially true for a software engineer/developer/code monkey since C, Java, Perl and Python are but different languages where you are trying to speak to a machine, not a human. A Technical Writer shouldn't have to do much more than parse the comments in the code, provide helpful diagrams and give a higher level view of how to use the software. Using precise, thought out language in all your communications means that precision will spill over into your code. As an example, here you are espousing that you just need someone like yourself - a communications expert - to correct the errors of others and you make a simple spelling mistake (don't have great writing skills - as log as you also hire someone to) which gives your credibility a hit. Allowing yourself the luxury of a native English speaker being able to over-look that error and still unuderstand you is what starts the downward spiral.
As far as the article goes, this is the issue - people let thier communications skills atrophy. They take it for granted others are able to correct thier 'misteaks'[1] or will reply back with a "Hunh?", and the idea can eventually be parsed out of the conversation. It's a question of discipline, of placing a real value of your communications ability and keeping that ability at its peak.
I read over every e-mail I before I click send and ask "Do I sound lucid, professional and do I actually communicate my idea well"? It takes a bit longer to do, but it also cuts down on mis-communication.
Soko
[1] Taken from that old poster that says "Know Misteaks Aloud!"
True enough.
/.ers as well as my friend.
Whenever I can, I link to my friends book - which was featured on Slashdot last month. I do keep things on-topic of course - I don't want to shill his book, just point out every instance where it would be helpful - like "Clearing viruses from Windows? It's easy with Knoppix - go get this book to show you how." in respone to a lament about a tough to get rid of infection.
Since I'm advocating a purchase, I am advertising, but moreover trying to be helpful - to my fellow
Soko
A Knoppix CD and this book are all you need. There's a hack on there for virus spyware removal from Windows. Trust me, it's easier to treat an un-concious patient than one that's awake and trying to stop you from helping.
But that book, BTW - it rocks!
Soko
IME WiFi sucks, it doesn't blow.
Sok[LOST_IP_CONNECTION_ON_WLAN0]
Bedevere: HELLO!
*waits*
An armour-clad face appears at the top of the rampart. It speaks in an outrageous French accent.
Soldier: 'Allo! 'Oo is it?
Arthur: It is I, King Arthur, and these are my knights of WIPO. Whose castle is this?
Soldier: This is the castle of my master, Richarde de Stallman.
Arthur: Go and tell your master that we have been charged by WIPO with a sacred quest. If he will give us food and shelter for the night, he can join us in our quest for the Holy Copyright.
Soldier: Well, I'll ask 'im, but I don't think 'e'll be very keen-- 'e's already got one, you see?
Arthur: What?
Lancelot: He says they've already *got* one!
Arthur: (confused) Are you *sure* he's got one?
Soldier: Oh yes, it's ver' naahs. ets called de GEE PEE HELL.(to the other soldiers:) I told 'em we've already *got* one! (they snicker)
Arthur: (taken a bit off balance) Well... ah, um... Can we come up and have a look?
Soldier: Of course not! You are Capitaliste types.
Arthur: Well, what are you then?
Soldier: (Indignant) Ah'm French! Why do you think I have this out-rrrageous accent, you silly king?!
Arthur: What are you doing in *WIPO*?
Soldier: Mind your own business!
Arthur: If you will not show us the Copyright, we shall take your castle by force!
Soldier: You don't frighten us, WIPO pig-dogs! Go and boil your bottoms, son of a silly person! Ah blow my nose at you, so-called "Arthur Keeeng"! You and all your silly English Knnnnnnnn-ighuts!!!
(the soldier proceeds to bang on his helmet with his hands and stick out his tongue at the knights, making strange noises.)
Lancelot: What a strange person.
Arthur: (getting mad) Now look here, my good ma--
Soldier: Ah don' wanna talk to you no more, you empty-headed animal food-trough wiper! Ah fart in your general direction! Your mother was a hamster, and your father smelt of elderberries!
Galahad: Is there someone else up there we can talk to?
Soldier: No!! Now go away, or I shall taunt you a second time!
(Yeah, the Monty Python schtick is a little old, but boy did it fit under the parent nicely!)
Soko
This is why a system that prints a paper ballot is the answer, IMHO.
That removes the computer from the equation - what you touch/click/press/wiggle over isn't your vote(s) - what the machine prints in clear, legible type on a paper ballot is. IOW, vote, get printed ballot of vote, check that your ballot is what you want, drop ballot in box.
As well, we all know that you can use one screen for one question, ask questions in order, and can provide means to skip over some of them. (ie press your candidate then press ok, or press skip to not vote in this race) The voter gets printed ballots for each question they've been asked. Print big numbers on the back to indicate what the ballot is for (Ballot One - President). Viola - we have an auditable system that should make things easier for the voter to cast the vote they want, since they're only answering a single question at a time and an easy means to verify that they have indeed done so. The back end would end up with something that's easy to count and re-count. (Plain black/white text is easy for OCR, and humans, to read)
This simplifies the process, should make it easier to keep what you're voting for straight and provides it's own audit trail.
Maybe I should patent it.
Soko
Dude. Sounds like the live Linux CD is payback for my father in-law. Knoppix for him it is.
Soko
I know all of this. Kerb5, LDAP, blah blah. I even know that the field they use in Kerb5 was reserved for "vendor implementations" or somesuch. AD is actually pretty good tech, it's just I don't want to drink the kool-aid unless I have to.
The irksome part is that I need Windows Servers in order to have full functionality with my Windows clients, and my other client and server systems (Mac OS/X, Solaris and Fedora) are then essentially second class citizens - to wit:
You can't apply GPOs to Linux boxes, obviously, but you can have them in the domain -- and have them work normally.
Why the hell can't I use GPOs in Linux? For no other reason than Microsoft wants to own my architecture. IOW, AD is not just a contribution to making my systems work better, easier and more reliably, it's also a marketing tool for the rest of Microsofts software stack. It's like that with every Microsoft product too.
Based on my experience with core MS technologies, Microsoft wants to weedle it's way into being the centre piece of your architecture whether you like it or not, not just another system that you can use at your discretion to do cool things with for all of your systems. That bothers me to no end.
Soko
At the end of the launch event Jonathan Schwartz made an impromptu speech; I didn't hear most of it, as I was too far away, but he did end his comments with something about Slashdotters. I ambled over to Schwartz and said, "If anyone here is going to get an article onto Slashdot, it's probably going to be me (since NewsForge and Slashdot are both part of OSTG). Tell me what you'd like Slashdot readers to know."
"Tell them that we're returning to our roots," Schwartz said, referring to the company's renewed focus on the Solaris operating environment.
"And we want developers back on our side. If there's more for us to do, we'll go do it," McNealy added. It was the first time all day that I felt that the two had broken character and simply told me what was on their minds.
As a long time Slashdotter who has had to use and deploy Solaris on occasion, let me tell Mr. McNealy and Mr. Scwartz what's on my mind about Sun. I know they'll be reading, so here goes:
First, cut the marketing BS. No press wars with Redhat, IBM or HP. No trumped up, spin laden press releases about Solaris 10. I don't even want to see a comaprison paper. Give me a technical white paper about what the OS can do and STFU - I then can see for myself whether Solaris 10 is a good or great OS. I can also then decide for myself if it's a good fit in my architecture. Most on Slashdot are technically adept - that's why we can run and support Linux or *BSD without Redhat's help. It's the PHBs who require that kind of hand holding, not us. (Hey, I just invented a new comic book villian - Spin Laden, the Marketing Terrarist!)
Open your dev process, as well as your code. I don't (necessarily) mean provide CVS access, I mean accept and credit quality patches to the code base. Open code would mean we can fix our own damned stuff when things in Solaris break and get our jobs done, while benefiting anyone else who has the same bug - we tend to like to share the fact we're smart enough to repair someone else's broken code. For large contributions, pay the contributor and pay him well.
Stay away from the rest of my systems unless I ask you in. No embedded Java in the OS, no Sun only core stuff (think Microsoft and Kerberos 5), just a big box of properly impelmented tools that I can use to make systems work, work well and work reliably. Your products will be sharing my network with other vendors, so play nice whenever you can. If that means re-writing some Solaris code to put into linux so it interoperates properly and GPLing it, so be it. That way I know that you're concerned about me and not just "maximizing value".
Contriubute to the industry. Some of us think RMS is a real looney, but we have the utmost respect him and his contributions. Mr. Gates, IMHO, does not contribute to the general cause or making my life easier unless there's a price tag, be it in dollars or having to shut out one of his colleagues - he calls them compeditors - from my architecture. Real contributions move the whole industry forward, and provide new opportunities for everyone to make a little $_CURRENCY, not just a select few.
Censure that person who 'escorted' out the interviewer. We like plain talk. We know you have fiduciary responsibilities, and most of us try to take those into account, but trying to hide what you really want to say doesn't wash. If you hate linux or love it, say so, and say why - with no spin on the matter. Speaking of plain talk, you'll get some from us. We know you're the head of a big, powerful Corp., but you should be willing to learn from us. When it comes to putting the tech on the floor, we are your betters, not your underlings.
Lastly, put your engineering department off limits to marketing personnel. OFF-LIMITS. Spin Laden should be shot on sight (by a Nerf gun, of course) if he dares tread where something cool is being made. No "That's a killer system, and we can leverage it to sell..." baloney please. I'm still loathe to implement AD because it's actually proprietary technology, even though it would make administrating my network a little easier.
Thanks for tuning in to my little rant. HAND.
Soko
I have to speak to this.
As an IT mangager type, I just cringe when I see someone who has installed a new screen saver and/or tool bars. I do my best to not be overbearing to my user community, but there comes a point where you have to say "Enough." I've gone through more than enough machines removing malware and spyware and then explained to the luser who abuses the machine that they're breaking things by installing un-approved apps, and next time I get out the LART.
The machine is there to help them get work done, not entertain them. It's like thier work area - we don't allow objectionable posters or dangerous items as decor, nor do we allow them to leave thier area in a dangerous clutter, so why should we allow them to do approximately the same thing to thier computer? It makes no business sense to do so. (BTW, the above analogy seems to actually sink in to a semi-intelligent luser's skull without applying deadly pressure - best clue I've found for them so far.) It's all about instilling the right culture into your organisation.
I'd love for something like the articles subject to come to fruition. It would be easier to manage, users would benefit from little to no down time as well as a consistent desktop environment, and I could approve all apps before they're installed, installed once and installed correctly. Hell, I'd allow and even deploy MP3 players, some games and even the coolest screen savers I could. I want them to have as rich an experience as possible, but I want that experience to be safe and inexpensive to use - and the article's subject seems to have a plausible chance of providing just that.
Soko
Try appending this to your GRUB boot line:
"acpi_irq_isa=7"
and see if it livens up.
Soko
The new version does not solve the udev issue - you still have to run those three commands.
Soko
You have SELinux turned on. I've set mine to "Warn" until I understand it just a bit better. If you didn't turn it on, keep reading.
Once SELinux is disabled, run these in order:Should fix you up. The reason AFAICT is that the NVIDIA driver is not aware of udev, which FC3 now uses.
BTW, NVIDIA released a new driver the evening FC3 was released - go get that too : 1.0-6629
Soko
I upgrade when I get the money.
And I get the money when my lovely bride (read: Domestic Finanacial Manager) decides to give it to me. (Hi, hon!)
Soko
Ummmm...
After the final of Firefox has actually been released, and been through the Fedora QA process, a simple "yum -y update" will get it for you.
Everyone has a schedule that they like to stick to.
Soko
... and the ever popular Etch-a-Sketch.
Soko
Pardon me, I mis-typed that.
.
my TOS with my ISP forbids downloading copyright protected works without the copyright owners' permission
So, Linux, BSD, Guttenberg, Creative Commons stuff etc. is OK, but movies are not.
Soko