.........They say every ending contains a new beginning. In the world of open source telephony, where revolutionary breakthroughs have been slow to come, it took the final act of an outgoing proprietary vendor to give the movement its much-needed jumpstart......
Its sad to know that these companies with so much potential doesnt realise the potential in Opensource until they are going out of business. If only they had designed and built it in the first place and released the specs for peer review by the open source community and standardising it, they would have been a success than having to shut down.
.....the telecom market remains a labyrinthine hive of black box technologies, a place where customers and value-added resellers (VARs) remain dependent on the proprietary hardware and software systems of a dominant telco or wireless company......
Just reiterating what I said above. But the sad part is they also made their money out of it and now that they have to shut down, only then they realise the potential of a GPL.
It just sickens me to the core to see every linux advocate trying hard to prove that the modus operandi of every Linux company is right and anyone who thinks otherwise is wrong. Though Slashdot boasts about being a free speech site, the moderators themselves are partial towards anything with an "x" in it, and would moderate anything else which has a "soft" in it.
Why cant you all just understand that no matter what company it is, whether they stand for Open Source or not, they are all run by people and people do make mistakes. I have heard a lot of them here saying that you cant bribe someone with an otherwise free software. Good point. however, do you think when you download a software for free from Corel, do you get everything thats part of the actual package that they sell on the market ? No you dont. Also, the company would give the journalist an opportunity to receive all beta version of software, which would be released in the market only months later, which would give him enough time to go through it, write reviews on the cool product and get some moolah. Tell me whether I am right or wrong in that assumption.
No one was questioning the stability or scalability of Linux here, they were just questioning the integrity of Linux companies and saying that they are not infallible as they portray themselves to be, just because they are Open source prophets. Understand that and just move on. Or else, stand around and shout its not true and realise the world has gone ahead and you are the only one standing on the curb.
I sure should have seen this coming. Linux is vying so hard to stabilize its position on the Desktop/Server market, that when it comes down to the company, everyone is doing a little under the table deals and not just MS.
I dont call it a shame. But Linux being so powerful and stable, it doesnt really require this. Linux advocates should understand that every O.S has its bugs and flaws and all it matters is how much time it takes to correct it and put it out, and whether you have the balls to admit it or not. This whole thing could have stemmed from the fact that, Linux distros has a lot of hype to live up to. And they believe if one reviewer were to point out something wrong about it, then the over hyped Linux O.S would not be received kindly by the market. They are very well aware of it and they would do any dirty trick in their bag before they succeed. I am sure every company does this, not just the Linux distros, but all the more reason to them coz as I said, they have a lot to loose and they just dont have the courage.
Everytime I want a wee bit of performance from my overclocked PIII 650, I flash him a pic of Jenna Jameson making out and viola!!... there he goes on a 700 mhz spree.. pity that it lasts only for one hour..before he ejaculates and sputters..then he needs to sleep for a day before I could boot him up again.
I am looking at new alternatives to this method. Have anyone tried anything better ??:)
.......here at PC Expo, which runs through tomorrow here at the Jacob Javits Convention Center in New York City, it's almost all Windows. And Palm.........
Thats because Windows is still the Biggest Fish and Linux would take an eternity to get there.
From some insider information that has been collected, Transmeta is gonna take atleast next five years to be able to compete in the market. They have been living all along with some linux hype and been riding the same waves that VAlinux and Redhat did before the market realised that Linux exactly isnt delivering as it promised. Ever since the market crumbled, Transmeta also took a backseat and has been whispering on the sidelines for sometime now. I believe it wont be long before they are either shouldered by Intel or some other chip company or be gobbled up by one of them. Transmeta would sooner or later realise that its playing in to a huge market which separates reality from hype sooner or later.
May it be Oracle or Microsoft or Sun or IBM, all of them would do something as unethical as this without a second thought. I believe Larry Ellison is more unethical than the whole lot, and he throws around his weight a lot nowadays. This whole affair is only about to get a whole worse than it is now. Oracle has been in a world of hurt because of Microsoft and products that directly compete with Oracles. Well, you might say that the Microsoft products were no competition at all to Oracles, but Oracles actions speaks for itself (And their ads and their internal memos:)). I am sure this would only knock over a can of worms and I believe if Oracle is capable of this, then theres nothing stopping the 800 pound Gorilla in going after any body out there, and I think they would be justified if they do. As for the Justice Dept, they are on to new mergers like the Sprint & MCI, and the industry leaders would soon realise that they shot themselves in their foot. By then it would be too late and uncle sam would be breathing down all their necks by then.
I guess Slashdotters are still a majority of kids and morons who dont know the difference between paying for something and stealing it. If you want everything for free, look up Utopia in the Webster. Or else.. grow up and accept the world for what it is.
Oh!!!! I cant believe it... OOohh. "Duhhh_king" replied to my post and judging from what you wrote, I believe he was HURT!!!.. Ooooh.!!! Hurt!!!.. I am hurt!!!.. Oh! By the way..I forgot to ask..Did your momma drop you on your head...or did the neighbour fuck her while you were still inside.. Something has to explain that hole in your head... Har..har... I am quite elated by the fact that people like you hate India and what it stands for. You see, what more could I expect from a person like you whos got a Grandma dragging her old pussy around to get some meat..:))).. I love you Boy... I really do... And no matter what I do..you would still come back for more..you cant help coming back for more..coz thats what your Momma always did...
It has one of the most colorful and diverse cultures around the world
It invented Zero thousands of years ago
It invented Plastic Surgery, long before Columbus decided to go on a journey to discover India and found United States instead.
The Pentium chip was invented by an Indian
Anyone heard of Chandrasekhars limit in Astronomy, related to Blackholes ?
It evaded the eyes of Spy Satelites and ever watchful CIA to test its most recent atomic weapons (though I am not too happy about it:))
It has practically amazed and held the entire world in wonder from the early stages of civilization to the present by its Intellectuals, Artists and its lush green beauty.
We have also been victims of racial discrimination and I wish it werent so.
Still in the Northern States of India, we still pay 2 Rs(1 Dollar - 45 Rs) as daily wage for the oppressed
I dont think Internet would bring an end to everything and I dont believe we have a one stop solution there. But what good is technology if it doesnt reach every home around the world (or at the least every village) and reach out and enrich their lives ? What good is Slashdot if it doesnt affect the way we think, the way we act ? If Technology or the knowledge of it, has turned us in to super human intellectuals, and we believe only we should rake its benefits, then we are both ignorant and pitiful.
I believe people in India are equally entitled to enjoy the benefits Internet provides, as much as any 14 yr old in United States or any other developed country. If we believe otherwise, then we are segregating the people on Earth and committing racial discrimination ourselves.
If anyone here were led to believe that India harbors or nurtures only criminal minds within itself, then they should checkout some of the bright minds that has sprung forth from that land. Take any major software player here (like HP, M$, Sun, Intel etc.) you would find us there. Not because we are cheap, otherwise you wouldnt find us in OS Kernel group, Compiler groups etc.
We believe in our tradition, our culture and our unity in diversity. Does any other country could boast about any of the above ? I didnt think so!..
Advances in Genome Tech and Agriculture looks appealing to the Developed Countries, but many Asian countries are heavily dependant on revenue earned by selling its Crops, who would be adversely affected by these patents. These life forms does not belong to any individual or any company. No matter what alterations man makes to life, life does not change unless it wants to be changed. Life alters Life. Man is just another pawn. I could only pity with these scientists and those who fund them in believing that they could control Life and through that make money out of the hapless farmers.
Actually this particular virus was born and probably inspired the ILOVEYOU virus. This is again a script kiddie virus and was release around six months back and the firm where in which I worked was affected. But the virus writer did something dumb..the virus sent itself three times to the same person on your Outlook Addressbook. Since three mails from the same person with the same attachment is fishy in nature, I never even looked at it. later I dissected the code and saw it didnt do much other than copying itself to network drives and adding the link.
My stupid Project Mgr opened it and he didnt even know that it left a link "XXXLinks" on his desktop until I showed him.
This is nothing new, just some kid who thought the ILOVEYOU virus is getting all the attention that he deserves and decided to send his baby out again.
Freedom of Speech must be the most raped and over-used right on the Net. I am not surprised. We use it so commonly, everytime someone takes offence at the content on a website or at a particular post on a Discussion Group, or in this case a Yahoo Auction site.
First off Slash dot doesnt consist people from the United States alone. Our nationality doesnt unite us.. our skills does, what we believe in unites us. I am grieved by some of the posts by Slashdot members which boast about what United States could do to France which are totally irrelevant to the topic at hand and most of all childish and doesnt befit a Slashdot member to make such a comment. We are not bound by our nationality, if we were this Discussion group would have gone to the dogs long ago. This is a Discussion group, because it is what it is.. a discussion group.
Yahoo has every right to keep the Auction site up and allow them to keep selling those items, but those items themselves are remnants of a god forbidden era, which no one would like to return. If those items or the auction of those items are causing grief to any individual or to a group in particular then Yahoo is morally responsible to take it off. ITs true that its not humanely possible for Yahoo to keep track of content published by its member sites, but it doesnt free Yahoo from the responsibility of removing offending content and kicking out the offenders once its found out.
Internet is a community without boundaries. Lets keep it that way. I am worried about all this talk about laws not being applicable in here, as Internet transcends human boundaries.. but if this is to remain that way, then both sides should comply.
I agree to the fact that the power of Linux comes from the developer and the power user, not from the marketing guy. Very true.. But, as pointed out in a comment to an older article, an increasingly number of users are using Windows98 not because it can even be counted as an Os, but because of the number of games available on it. And it would be a long time before Linux would have such a credit
But the Question here is whether Linux want to be in that space. Does Linux want to be in the desktop space ? Is the desktop market going to boom ? Or should Linux look at making it big in the Server market, providing better reliability and a five 9 uptime and the best security. I am sure none of the M$ OS till now are capable of providing it. Linux never depended on its market share, rather it spread by the word of mouth and its raw power. Windows sadly remains the choice of people who want an easy desktop environment running many other powerful Windows utilities and commercial software.
I was there at the GDC, and apart from Loki, I couldnt even see anyone else backing Linux there. More over, Quake3 ran with average frame rates..which might not interest a hard core gamer. For him, Windows98 with Direct3d And OpenGL already caters to all his requirements in gaming and he is happy with that and he would rather not be disturbed by the entry of another OS player.
But however, Linux Console may be exciting if they can afford to bring out a console in the 200$ range, and I am sure there would be a lot of people willing to throw out their PCs if it comes out any sooner.
Till then I would be happy with my Windows98 which crashes twice a day and let me play all my games while my Rhat Linux machine sits next to it and gleams with pride.
A Search Engine to serve up content to any device, whether its a Desktop or a Wireless Device.. oops.. Google been there, done that.
An intelligent utility sitting on the server to serve content matching the user preferences, through intelligence acquired by watching what the User bought, selected, and chose over the past months - Oops again...Vignette, Broadvision are already in that problem space..
Build an Evil Empire over two decades, write millions of lines of code and deliver half of the functionality promised, crash twice a week and still manage to eat up half of its competitors.. Oops again.. M$ has already done that too.
Build one of the best desktop UI for Linux to make it more easy and accessible to John Doe... Andy Hertzfeld did that too
Build a thin protocol for transferring data on the wire,making seamless integration of components possible over a distributed networked architecture using XML - SOAP(Simple Object Access Protocol) is already doing that..
Create a good online teaching utility which is intelligent enough to understand the topic that its supposed to teach, based on the complexity grades assigned to each topic, grade the student over a period, serve content to him based on his preferences, watch how much time is spent on each topic and based on that, decide to serve up more topic of related interest or switch to something else. All in all, make the online learning experience easy, intelligent and which requires least effort from the user, and make him feel that theres a real person on the other side, watching his every move, grading him etc..etc.. Now that could be something..
Intelligence is not a byproduct of Evolution, sadly for you. if it were, then you would have come up with something better than this. In my rare moments of Sanity...I post to Slashdot.
There are people here who really think that Bill Gates is Evil Incarnate:). Well..I dont know..honestly, I wouldnt be surprised if he is, but he was to a main part the reason why so many people all over the world are using computers now. But that doesnt make it right, the BS he has done to get there.
I would really like all of Slashdot just to move forward and not spend more time on these petty issues. If we could make Linux more powerful and easy to use on the desktop, then we might as well do it, rather than bicker on the side lines. The question whether a desktop OS would be important or not in the near future is another matter. Well, as a matter of fact, if Microsoft does not mend its ways in the future, and decide to truly innovate, rather than build its empire through mindless headbutting its way through, and timely acquisitions, then I guess we wont be talking about MS ten years from now.
Everyone has a right to be in the Computing Industry, the 800 pound Gorilla and the Cute Penguin. And Open source shouldnt be worrying about the Gorilla on the arena, rather we should be working to make every open source project a success, and better than the commercial solutions available out there.
On a more serious note, I dont really think this whole hoopla is about Freedom of Speech. Freedom of Speech is when Microsoft doesnt want you talking truth about them. That we do anyway. But, if copyright laws is the issue here otherwise, then we should do whatever we have to make our stand clear. Slashdot never stood for mindless copying or piracy, even when it comes to mp3(We end up buying those CD's right ??:).
I along other ardent fans of this discussion group, would never want to see Slashdot fall down in our eyes. And sometimes Backing out from the Arena doesnt mean that you have failed. We are only halfway through the War. There are some people who post here, who seriously believe MS stands for everything wrong in the World, Gates is Evil Incarnate, and MPAA should be hung. But, in todays world, the fine line between right and wrong is so thin that sometimes its very hard to find.
What we all should do as a community is to stand for what we believe in. Now we need to ask this ourselves.. is copying fair without the rightful permission from the author ? Whatever be the answer,When we have it, lets come back here and then stand together and fight against anybody who wants to shut us down.
Most of the times in battles, the side who wins may not be the one who sided with the truth, but the one who truly believed that they were right. Remember that !
Well.. Emmett, that was certainly a good post. It was good reading, whether it was an intelligent article, I am not very sure. You see, I have been on both sides of the battle since it started and to be truthful I havent seen anyone losing..yet. And to be frank, I dont see any clear winner too. Well all are aware that Microsoft and other major corporations have no regard for the freedom that a User might want in choosing different solutions. And I am pretty sure, that Microsoft Software is one of the buggiest, but at the same time, thats not a rarity. I have seen Open source being buggy too.. but thats not the point. This world have two kinds of people, those who use computers for a living, and those who use computers as a way to enhance their living. 90% falls on the latter side. Now, these are not people who are zombies as Geeks portray them to be, they are just ordinary people who have been living out their lives, content with what they have and wouldnt use a computer unless theres a reason for it. They dont give a damn whether they are using Linux or Windows or Solaris, all they expect is results. 90% of the Worlds Business also follow suit. They dont care if its Microsoft Solutions they use or Open Source. If they get a good support for those solutions that they implement and then theres the critical "time to market" issue..and at the end of the day, if the Business is done, then they are all happy. However, not everyone is happy , especiall the Open Source enthusiasts. Now I admit that 60% of them are true intellects people who wont take a beating lying down. We are people who have seen and built better software than the ones forced upon them. And we dont take it lying back. So we stand up and yell for all the worlds attention. We tell them that these companies are milking us and we should start looking at better solutions which are necessarily free. But, does anything happen..I dont think so. Now all this analogy between Open Source and Rebels in the Star wars is quite amicable, but then again, people dont give a damn. You see, if Person "A" gets his job done, gets what he want, at the end of the day he is happy. He doesnt mind, if Windows crashes twice during the day. He wouldnt give a damn if Microsoft charges him more, as long as he is getting what he wants. But to think that he would use a complex solution as Linux or any other open source solutions, clearly better than the one he is using now, wont cut a niche with him. Microsoft is clearly guilty of taking the Kerberos spec and then changing it to their own needs. But did the people who developed the Spec, ever say that the Extensions had to be public or open ? They didnt, so they should learn to shut up instead. I am not saying that Microsoft is right in doing so, but lawfully, if what they did is right, then everyone else should shut up and let them be. They have enough problems in their hands to worry about now. Windows2000 may have 64,000 bugs, but for me, it hasnt crashed once in the last seven months I have been using it. I run Linux and Apache too (www.hackorama.com). But then again,we really dont give a damn whether Windows2000 is better than NT, do we ? We have Linux, so everyone else should be using Linux. Well.. I dont think thats gonna happen. Linux is powerful in its own realms. But, you cant forget the fact that these major corpns would come up with better solutions sometimes. Now, MS is right once in asking Slashdot to remove postings which include part of their Extensions to the Kerberos spec. After all its a copyright violation, no matter how you look at it. \. is responsible for the postings here. And if a wrong is done, then they are morally responsible to make it right. Well, I am sure that a lot of comments might pop up as a reply to my post. But thats what I like about Slashdot. This is one Discussion Group that I would never wanna leave, because I still believe that the people here are capable of more than flaming microsoft. Maybe we should just let them be and learn to move on. Theres so much more to computing than Microsoft.
Well..well..another Hole. Bad timing..I guess. Hope Microsoft would have a say in this. And I hope they do something about this soon, and not take a week before they release something. They have already too much s#%t on their hands now. But, if you were to think about it, Netscape had their fair amount of Security holes. IE is no different. I have been using both for the past three years. IE 3.0 was a dud..but from IE4.0 onwards I found it far far better than Netscape in terms of programmability and ease of use. I am sure there would be people here who would differ..but thats what I like about Slashdot. Finally, a discussion group which has people who dont bicker about small things, though I must say, we have an ego as well as the intellect which is double the size of the Bugs in Windows 2000. But then again, thats the first OS I ever had from MS which I never had to shut down for the last six months and never crashed on me.. Now thats gonna raise a debate again..but its true for me..and thats it. Anyway, IE is still far better than Netscape in terms of usability and programming on the MS platform, no matter how shitty it is. But I am sure Netscape is getting there. Lets all hope so. I hate sigs..so heres our website. For both MS and linux advocates alike. http://www.hackorama.com
ASP or ASP+ for that matter(Which would be rolled out in a couple of months by MS) would be a good option than Perl or any other CGI scripts. Thats my 2 cents
Slashdot Mirror
Scully : Mulder...you are turning in to mercury droplets.. How do you do it ?
New Mulder : Its called Cubic Environment Mapping baby...yeah!!!
.........They say every ending contains a new beginning. In the world of open source telephony, where revolutionary breakthroughs have been slow to come, it took the final act of an outgoing proprietary vendor to give the movement its much-needed jumpstart. .....
Its sad to know that these companies with so much potential doesnt realise the potential in Opensource until they are going out of business. If only they had designed and built it in the first place and released the specs for peer review by the open source community and standardising it, they would have been a success than having to shut down.
.....the telecom market remains a labyrinthine hive of black box technologies, a place where customers and value-added resellers (VARs) remain dependent on the proprietary hardware and software systems of a dominant telco or wireless company......
Just reiterating what I said above. But the sad part is they also made their money out of it and now that they have to shut down, only then they realise the potential of a GPL.
It just sickens me to the core to see every linux advocate trying hard to prove that the modus operandi of every Linux company is right and anyone who thinks otherwise is wrong. Though Slashdot boasts about being a free speech site, the moderators themselves are partial towards anything with an "x" in it, and would moderate anything else which has a "soft" in it.
Why cant you all just understand that no matter what company it is, whether they stand for Open Source or not, they are all run by people and people do make mistakes. I have heard a lot of them here saying that you cant bribe someone with an otherwise free software. Good point. however, do you think when you download a software for free from Corel, do you get everything thats part of the actual package that they sell on the market ? No you dont. Also, the company would give the journalist an opportunity to receive all beta version of software, which would be released in the market only months later, which would give him enough time to go through it, write reviews on the cool product and get some moolah. Tell me whether I am right or wrong in that assumption.
No one was questioning the stability or scalability of Linux here, they were just questioning the integrity of Linux companies and saying that they are not infallible as they portray themselves to be, just because they are Open source prophets. Understand that and just move on. Or else, stand around and shout its not true and realise the world has gone ahead and you are the only one standing on the curb.
I sure should have seen this coming. Linux is vying so hard to stabilize its position on the Desktop/Server market, that when it comes down to the company, everyone is doing a little under the table deals and not just MS.
I dont call it a shame. But Linux being so powerful and stable, it doesnt really require this. Linux advocates should understand that every O.S has its bugs and flaws and all it matters is how much time it takes to correct it and put it out, and whether you have the balls to admit it or not. This whole thing could have stemmed from the fact that, Linux distros has a lot of hype to live up to. And they believe if one reviewer were to point out something wrong about it, then the over hyped Linux O.S would not be received kindly by the market. They are very well aware of it and they would do any dirty trick in their bag before they succeed. I am sure every company does this, not just the Linux distros, but all the more reason to them coz as I said, they have a lot to loose and they just dont have the courage.
Well said and enough. Come on moderating b@#stards, shoot me down, I aint gonna be a karma whore !!!
Everytime I want a wee bit of performance from my overclocked PIII 650, I flash him a pic of Jenna Jameson making out and viola!!... there he goes on a 700 mhz spree.. pity that it lasts only for one hour..before he ejaculates and sputters..then he needs to sleep for a day before I could boot him up again.
:)
I am looking at new alternatives to this method. Have anyone tried anything better ??
When in doubt - RTFM
.......here at PC Expo, which runs through tomorrow here at the Jacob Javits Convention Center in New York City, it's almost all Windows. And Palm. ........
Thats because Windows is still the Biggest Fish and Linux would take an eternity to get there.
Just my 2cents
When in doubt - RTFM
From some insider information that has been collected, Transmeta is gonna take atleast next five years to be able to compete in the market. They have been living all along with some linux hype and been riding the same waves that VAlinux and Redhat did before the market realised that Linux exactly isnt delivering as it promised. Ever since the market crumbled, Transmeta also took a backseat and has been whispering on the sidelines for sometime now. I believe it wont be long before they are either shouldered by Intel or some other chip company or be gobbled up by one of them. Transmeta would sooner or later realise that its playing in to a huge market which separates reality from hype sooner or later.
When in doubt - RTFM
May it be Oracle or Microsoft or Sun or IBM, all of them would do something as unethical as this without a second thought. I believe Larry Ellison is more unethical than the whole lot, and he throws around his weight a lot nowadays. This whole affair is only about to get a whole worse than it is now. Oracle has been in a world of hurt because of Microsoft and products that directly compete with Oracles. Well, you might say that the Microsoft products were no competition at all to Oracles, but Oracles actions speaks for itself (And their ads and their internal memos :)). I am sure this would only knock over a can of worms and I believe if Oracle is capable of this, then theres nothing stopping the 800 pound Gorilla in going after any body out there, and I think they would be justified if they do. As for the Justice Dept, they are on to new mergers like the Sprint & MCI, and the industry leaders would soon realise that they shot themselves in their foot. By then it would be too late and uncle sam would be breathing down all their necks by then.
I guess Slashdotters are still a majority of kids and morons who dont know the difference between paying for something and stealing it. If you want everything for free, look up Utopia in the Webster. Or else.. grow up and accept the world for what it is.
Oh!!!! I cant believe it... OOohh. "Duhhh_king" replied to my post and judging from what you wrote, I believe he was HURT!!!.. Ooooh.!!! Hurt!!!.. I am hurt!!!.. Oh! By the way..I forgot to ask..Did your momma drop you on your head...or did the neighbour fuck her while you were still inside.. Something has to explain that hole in your head... Har..har... I am quite elated by the fact that people like you hate India and what it stands for. You see, what more could I expect from a person like you whos got a Grandma dragging her old pussy around to get some meat.. :))).. I love you Boy... I really do... And no matter what I do..you would still come back for more..you cant help coming back for more..coz thats what your Momma always did...
I am from India.
:))
It has one of the most colorful and diverse cultures around the world
It invented Zero thousands of years ago
It invented Plastic Surgery, long before Columbus decided to go on a journey to discover India and found United States instead.
The Pentium chip was invented by an Indian
Anyone heard of Chandrasekhars limit in Astronomy, related to Blackholes ?
It evaded the eyes of Spy Satelites and ever watchful CIA to test its most recent atomic weapons (though I am not too happy about it
It has practically amazed and held the entire world in wonder from the early stages of civilization to the present by its Intellectuals, Artists and its lush green beauty.
We have also been victims of racial discrimination and I wish it werent so.
Still in the Northern States of India, we still pay 2 Rs(1 Dollar - 45 Rs) as daily wage for the oppressed
I dont think Internet would bring an end to everything and I dont believe we have a one stop solution there. But what good is technology if it doesnt reach every home around the world (or at the least every village) and reach out and enrich their lives ? What good is Slashdot if it doesnt affect the way we think, the way we act ? If Technology or the knowledge of it, has turned us in to super human intellectuals, and we believe only we should rake its benefits, then we are both ignorant and pitiful.
I believe people in India are equally entitled to enjoy the benefits Internet provides, as much as any 14 yr old in United States or any other developed country. If we believe otherwise, then we are segregating the people on Earth and committing racial discrimination ourselves.
If anyone here were led to believe that India harbors or nurtures only criminal minds within itself, then they should checkout some of the bright minds that has sprung forth from that land. Take any major software player here (like HP, M$, Sun, Intel etc.) you would find us there. Not because we are cheap, otherwise you wouldnt find us in OS Kernel group, Compiler groups etc.
We believe in our tradition, our culture and our unity in diversity. Does any other country could boast about any of the above ? I didnt think so!..
Advances in Genome Tech and Agriculture looks appealing to the Developed Countries, but many Asian countries are heavily dependant on revenue earned by selling its Crops, who would be adversely affected by these patents. These life forms does not belong to any individual or any company. No matter what alterations man makes to life, life does not change unless it wants to be changed. Life alters Life. Man is just another pawn. I could only pity with these scientists and those who fund them in believing that they could control Life and through that make money out of the hapless farmers.
Actually this particular virus was born and probably inspired the ILOVEYOU virus. This is again a script kiddie virus and was release around six months back and the firm where in which I worked was affected. But the virus writer did something dumb..the virus sent itself three times to the same person on your Outlook Addressbook. Since three mails from the same person with the same attachment is fishy in nature, I never even looked at it. later I dissected the code and saw it didnt do much other than copying itself to network drives and adding the link.
My stupid Project Mgr opened it and he didnt even know that it left a link "XXXLinks" on his desktop until I showed him.
This is nothing new, just some kid who thought the ILOVEYOU virus is getting all the attention that he deserves and decided to send his baby out again.
Grow up!
Now now..dont flame me yet..
Freedom of Speech must be the most raped and over-used right on the Net. I am not surprised. We use it so commonly, everytime someone takes offence at the content on a website or at a particular post on a Discussion Group, or in this case a Yahoo Auction site.
First off Slash dot doesnt consist people from the United States alone. Our nationality doesnt unite us.. our skills does, what we believe in unites us. I am grieved by some of the posts by Slashdot members which boast about what United States could do to France which are totally irrelevant to the topic at hand and most of all childish and doesnt befit a Slashdot member to make such a comment. We are not bound by our nationality, if we were this Discussion group would have gone to the dogs long ago. This is a Discussion group, because it is what it is.. a discussion group.
Yahoo has every right to keep the Auction site up and allow them to keep selling those items, but those items themselves are remnants of a god forbidden era, which no one would like to return. If those items or the auction of those items are causing grief to any individual or to a group in particular then Yahoo is morally responsible to take it off. ITs true that its not humanely possible for Yahoo to keep track of content published by its member sites, but it doesnt free Yahoo from the responsibility of removing offending content and kicking out the offenders once its found out.
Internet is a community without boundaries. Lets keep it that way. I am worried about all this talk about laws not being applicable in here, as Internet transcends human boundaries.. but if this is to remain that way, then both sides should comply.
I agree to the fact that the power of Linux comes from the developer and the power user, not from the marketing guy. Very true.. But, as pointed out in a comment to an older article, an increasingly number of users are using Windows98 not because it can even be counted as an Os, but because of the number of games available on it. And it would be a long time before Linux would have such a credit
But the Question here is whether Linux want to be in that space. Does Linux want to be in the desktop space ? Is the desktop market going to boom ? Or should Linux look at making it big in the Server market, providing better reliability and a five 9 uptime and the best security. I am sure none of the M$ OS till now are capable of providing it. Linux never depended on its market share, rather it spread by the word of mouth and its raw power. Windows sadly remains the choice of people who want an easy desktop environment running many other powerful Windows utilities and commercial software.
I was there at the GDC, and apart from Loki, I couldnt even see anyone else backing Linux there. More over, Quake3 ran with average frame rates..which might not interest a hard core gamer. For him, Windows98 with Direct3d And OpenGL already caters to all his requirements in gaming and he is happy with that and he would rather not be disturbed by the entry of another OS player.
But however, Linux Console may be exciting if they can afford to bring out a console in the 200$ range, and I am sure there would be a lot of people willing to throw out their PCs if it comes out any sooner.
Till then I would be happy with my Windows98 which crashes twice a day and let me play all my games while my Rhat Linux machine sits next to it and gleams with pride.
Hmm..lets see..
A Search Engine to serve up content to any device, whether its a Desktop or a Wireless Device.. oops.. Google been there, done that.
An intelligent utility sitting on the server to serve content matching the user preferences, through intelligence acquired by watching what the User bought, selected, and chose over the past months - Oops again...Vignette, Broadvision are already in that problem space..
Build an Evil Empire over two decades, write millions of lines of code and deliver half of the functionality promised, crash twice a week and still manage to eat up half of its competitors.. Oops again.. M$ has already done that too.
Build one of the best desktop UI for Linux to make it more easy and accessible to John Doe... Andy Hertzfeld did that too
Build a thin protocol for transferring data on the wire,making seamless integration of components possible over a distributed networked architecture using XML - SOAP(Simple Object Access Protocol) is already doing that..
Create a good online teaching utility which is intelligent enough to understand the topic that its supposed to teach, based on the complexity grades assigned to each topic, grade the student over a period, serve content to him based on his preferences, watch how much time is spent on each topic and based on that, decide to serve up more topic of related interest or switch to something else. All in all, make the online learning experience easy, intelligent and which requires least effort from the user, and make him feel that theres a real person on the other side, watching his every move, grading him etc..etc.. Now that could be something..
I hate sigs..
www.hackorama.com
Intelligence is not a byproduct of Evolution, sadly for you. if it were, then you would have come up with something better than this. In my rare moments of Sanity...I post to Slashdot.
There are people here who really think that Bill Gates is Evil Incarnate :). Well..I dont know..honestly, I wouldnt be surprised if he is, but he was to a main part the reason why so many people all over the world are using computers now. But that doesnt make it right, the BS he has done to get there.
:).
I would really like all of Slashdot just to move forward and not spend more time on these petty issues. If we could make Linux more powerful and easy to use on the desktop, then we might as well do it, rather than bicker on the side lines. The question whether a desktop OS would be important or not in the near future is another matter. Well, as a matter of fact, if Microsoft does not mend its ways in the future, and decide to truly innovate, rather than build its empire through mindless headbutting its way through, and timely acquisitions, then I guess we wont be talking about MS ten years from now.
Everyone has a right to be in the Computing Industry, the 800 pound Gorilla and the Cute Penguin. And Open source shouldnt be worrying about the Gorilla on the arena, rather we should be working to make every open source project a success, and better than the commercial solutions available out there.
On a more serious note, I dont really think this whole hoopla is about Freedom of Speech. Freedom of Speech is when Microsoft doesnt want you talking truth about them. That we do anyway. But, if copyright laws is the issue here otherwise, then we should do whatever we have to make our stand clear. Slashdot never stood for mindless copying or piracy, even when it comes to mp3(We end up buying those CD's right ??
I along other ardent fans of this discussion group, would never want to see Slashdot fall down in our eyes. And sometimes Backing out from the Arena doesnt mean that you have failed. We are only halfway through the War. There are some people who post here, who seriously believe MS stands for everything wrong in the World, Gates is Evil Incarnate, and MPAA should be hung. But, in todays world, the fine line between right and wrong is so thin that sometimes its very hard to find.
What we all should do as a community is to stand for what we believe in. Now we need to ask this ourselves.. is copying fair without the rightful permission from the author ? Whatever be the answer,When we have it, lets come back here and then stand together and fight against anybody who wants to shut us down.
Most of the times in battles, the side who wins may not be the one who sided with the truth, but the one who truly believed that they were right. Remember that !
www.hackorama.com
Well.. Emmett, that was certainly a good post. It was good reading, whether it was an intelligent article, I am not very sure. You see, I have been on both sides of the battle since it started and to be truthful I havent seen anyone losing..yet. And to be frank, I dont see any clear winner too. Well all are aware that Microsoft and other major corporations have no regard for the freedom that a User might want in choosing different solutions. And I am pretty sure, that Microsoft Software is one of the buggiest, but at the same time, thats not a rarity. I have seen Open source being buggy too.. but thats not the point. This world have two kinds of people, those who use computers for a living, and those who use computers as a way to enhance their living. 90% falls on the latter side. Now, these are not people who are zombies as Geeks portray them to be, they are just ordinary people who have been living out their lives, content with what they have and wouldnt use a computer unless theres a reason for it. They dont give a damn whether they are using Linux or Windows or Solaris, all they expect is results. 90% of the Worlds Business also follow suit. They dont care if its Microsoft Solutions they use or Open Source. If they get a good support for those solutions that they implement and then theres the critical "time to market" issue..and at the end of the day, if the Business is done, then they are all happy. However, not everyone is happy , especiall the Open Source enthusiasts. Now I admit that 60% of them are true intellects people who wont take a beating lying down. We are people who have seen and built better software than the ones forced upon them. And we dont take it lying back. So we stand up and yell for all the worlds attention. We tell them that these companies are milking us and we should start looking at better solutions which are necessarily free. But, does anything happen..I dont think so. Now all this analogy between Open Source and Rebels in the Star wars is quite amicable, but then again, people dont give a damn. You see, if Person "A" gets his job done, gets what he want, at the end of the day he is happy. He doesnt mind, if Windows crashes twice during the day. He wouldnt give a damn if Microsoft charges him more, as long as he is getting what he wants. But to think that he would use a complex solution as Linux or any other open source solutions, clearly better than the one he is using now, wont cut a niche with him. Microsoft is clearly guilty of taking the Kerberos spec and then changing it to their own needs. But did the people who developed the Spec, ever say that the Extensions had to be public or open ? They didnt, so they should learn to shut up instead. I am not saying that Microsoft is right in doing so, but lawfully, if what they did is right, then everyone else should shut up and let them be. They have enough problems in their hands to worry about now. Windows2000 may have 64,000 bugs, but for me, it hasnt crashed once in the last seven months I have been using it. I run Linux and Apache too (www.hackorama.com). But then again,we really dont give a damn whether Windows2000 is better than NT, do we ? We have Linux, so everyone else should be using Linux. Well.. I dont think thats gonna happen. Linux is powerful in its own realms. But, you cant forget the fact that these major corpns would come up with better solutions sometimes. Now, MS is right once in asking Slashdot to remove postings which include part of their Extensions to the Kerberos spec. After all its a copyright violation, no matter how you look at it. \. is responsible for the postings here. And if a wrong is done, then they are morally responsible to make it right. Well, I am sure that a lot of comments might pop up as a reply to my post. But thats what I like about Slashdot. This is one Discussion Group that I would never wanna leave, because I still believe that the people here are capable of more than flaming microsoft. Maybe we should just let them be and learn to move on. Theres so much more to computing than Microsoft.
Well..well..another Hole. Bad timing..I guess. Hope Microsoft would have a say in this. And I hope they do something about this soon, and not take a week before they release something. They have already too much s#%t on their hands now. But, if you were to think about it, Netscape had their fair amount of Security holes. IE is no different. I have been using both for the past three years. IE 3.0 was a dud..but from IE4.0 onwards I found it far far better than Netscape in terms of programmability and ease of use. I am sure there would be people here who would differ..but thats what I like about Slashdot. Finally, a discussion group which has people who dont bicker about small things, though I must say, we have an ego as well as the intellect which is double the size of the Bugs in Windows 2000. But then again, thats the first OS I ever had from MS which I never had to shut down for the last six months and never crashed on me.. Now thats gonna raise a debate again..but its true for me..and thats it. Anyway, IE is still far better than Netscape in terms of usability and programming on the MS platform, no matter how shitty it is. But I am sure Netscape is getting there. Lets all hope so. I hate sigs..so heres our website. For both MS and linux advocates alike. http://www.hackorama.com
ASP or ASP+ for that matter(Which would be rolled out in a couple of months by MS) would be a good option than Perl or any other CGI scripts. Thats my 2 cents