As evident by the article, the flamefest is already beginning. All the government has done is agree that OSS could be a good thing to put to use. Rather than applaud them for taking such a step, the article blasts them for how they came to their conclusions. Huh? What? The committee has ruled positively for OSS. What's the problem? Let's take a look at some of the critique the author had.
1. How does a report to the President on Free/Open software development not even mention Richard Stallman?
What the hell does that matter? Are the conclusions somehow invalid because the committee did not tout the accomplishments of RMS? This committee does not care about the holy wars that have been fought to get free software where it is today. They're looking at how viable the *software* and *methodology* of free/open software is a solution to goverment needs. So is free software about free software or just about RMS getting his props?
2. This raises another question: who knew in the community that this committee was working on the report?
Again, I fail to see the relevancy. If anything, the fact that this committee of "people who have the same old, corporate, command and control hierarchichal mindset" came to this conclusion without any influence from the free software community is a testament to the quality of free software. Oh, but they didn't invite RMS to be on the committee, nor did they make his favorite teas available to him (remember that article?) so their findings are invalid. Please spare me.
3. Did anyone notice recommendation No. 3. the ultimate goal of which is "agreeing upon a single, common licensing agreement"?
Why yes, I did notice. My god this is ridiculous. They haven't even *done* anything yet and the author is basically screaming "GPL VIOLATION!" already. Understand my friend that this a government we're talking about here. This is not XYZ company that is worried about losing some IP which would affect its bottomline. This is a goverment with very real NATIONAL SECURITY issues to deal with. I am certainly not saying that the law does not apply to them nor that they are exempt from license agreements. An observant reader who is not too busy crying fowl like the author of this article, will see recommendation No. 3. in a different way. The government knows that while they may be able to get away with quietly violation the GPL (and other free-ish licenses) for awhile, eventually they will be caught in the act and shit will hit the fan. So No. 3. is an importmant hurdle to get over and the committee would not have been doing its job if they had not mentioned it. Who knows what kind of license it will be. They might even decide on the GPL because let's face it, the government is not going to release the source to anything critical. I dont believe we're ever going to see nor would I want to see nuclear_launch_system-1.0 on freshmeat. Ever. Not in a million years. Say all the bad things you want about security through obscurity, but some things are best left secret and locked up in a vault behind 100 men (or woman!) trained to kill you with their bare hands.
Mr. Stanco is jumping the gun a bit. If you are a true believer in free software then applaud the government for taking this first step. Instead of being critical of mistakes they haven't even made yet, offer ideas on how they can make free software work for them.
I think the important part here is that you dont
work for this company anymore. Alright, so your contract with them says that you have to turn over any inventions you created while employed by them. This does not mean that you have to sign off on their patent. Noone can make you put your signature on something you dont want to, that's called duress. Now, you could refuse to endorse this patent but as you said this could be another stupid patent that the PTO grants. If you really feel that strongly that this idea/invention does not warrant a patent then the best thing you can do is make that opinion known to the PTO. I'm sure hearing that from one of the people involved in creating what's now up for a patent would carry alot of weight with the PTO. Just make sure that your argument against it is well thought out otherwise your previous employer could spin it as sour grapes.
Get on the kernel developer's mailing list and be nice... Contribute and tell them of your ideas. Eventually you'll get to know one or more people and things will come
naturally.
First off, he already stated that he was on the kernel mailing list and that's where he posted the bugfix. Second, while hanging around on the list, contributing, and eventually getting to know some people is a good idea if you plan to be doing lots of work on the kernel, it should NOT be necessary if all you want to do is submit a simple bugfix. That being said, I think the guy just needs to be patient. The kernel developers are swamped with things to do but eventually someone will probably get on it.
True, but remember, DirecPC has this exact same setup too...
No actually, I didn't know that. Interesting.
And for most people, a fast downstream (with huge latency >.5s) is more important than upstream. Just that 'most' !=/. readers
Very true, but that wasn't my point. Every single person that was just your casual web surfer (which is the majority of the people out there) that I've talked to wouldn't pay more money for a broadband connection. The increase in download speeds just wasn't enough to justify paying more each month. Not until I explained that you could rid of that extra phone line thus paying just about the same amount per month, were they sold on the idea.
Well the MSN one sounds good, but the AOL one has a problem. You still need to upload via dialup which means you cant get rid of that phone line. For me personally, aside from the speed increase, I could justify a $40/month cable modem because I could get rid of the extra phone line I was using for dialup. $20/month for an ISP and about $20/month for the phone line so going to a cable modem cost me nothing. So i dont really see too many people jumping over to AOL's satellite service just for this reason alone.
If you thought that moron driving down the highway in his SUV doing 90mph while talking on his cellphone was bad, you just wait! That'll be just what I need. Idiots in personal helicopters distracted by cellphones, crashing into my house.
I understand the concerns of the IOC, but right now, streaming video and what not over the Internet just cannot compete at *all* with a tv broadcast. Think about it. If you're really interested in watching the games would you rather watch them live in a tiny window on your monitor with crappy image quality and poor sound or wait a few hours and watch them on tv with a good, big picture and good sound? I know exactly which one I would choose. Even with broadband, an internet video feed can't compete with your television.
Maybe for the next olympic games that will have changed and the IOC's fears will be justified. However, when internet video feeds get to the point where they equal the quality of tv, the big networks who pay out the cash for broadcasting rights will be streaming video over the internet themselves. Hrm, tv advertising revenue and internet broadcasting revenue at the same time. They'll definately be doing it.
Isn't it somewhat disheartening that a company has
to come out and publicly give their blessing for people to tinker with what they own? Yes, I know Tivo couldn't stop people from hacking up their products even if they were so inclined, but this should be implicit. If you bought it, you own it and can do whatever the hell you want to it and no company anywhere or anytime should be able to say anything about it except that you've voided the warranty.
Re:Action failed: copyright reg was prerequisite!
on
Napster Ruling Stayed
·
· Score: 2
Hrm, actually I think you've misread the document. The document you have linked to does not contain the appellate judge's ruling but rather Napster's application/argument for a stay against the injunction. Take a look at the last page. It's signed by the lawyers for Napster. So this is not one judge tearing apart the ruling of another judge but lawyers telling an appellate judge why the previous judge screwed up. It was still a good read though.
Of course, it *is* 2am. Maybe I misread it in which case disregard:)
Linux has less and less become an "underground" (even "subculture" is losing applicability), and sometimes I think this has a negative impact on the OS. I see many of my friends who take that aspect seriously switching to less popular operating systems like OpenBSD or Be.
So what this tells me is that your friends weren't using linux because they thought it was a superior OS, but to have some sense of elitism in using an OS that most people didn't. This is just silly. However, the same attitude exists everywhere. In music for example. Your favorite underground band finds some wide success and lots of people hear about them. Suddenly this band and sold out and become trendy. You dont like them anymore even though they're more or less putting out the same quality of music that they've also put out.
I don't think commercial adoption of Linux had much if anything to do with any loss of stability in the OS. The fact of the matter is that Linux has grown more and more complex with each release. Obviously the more complexity you introduce into a system the more problems there are going to be with it. Add to that the fact that this code gets ported to run on numerous different architectures introducing even more complexity. No matter how good of a programmer you are, you can't avoid bugs. Still, given the complexity issues I've state above, I think the kernel developers have done a hell of a job.
Now, quality of applications. That's a different story, but it has nothing to do with the OS itself. No matter what OS you are using there are going to be great applications and there are going to be total crap applications. You just need to weed out the good from the bad which, admittedly, is getting harder and harder as the number of applications available for Linux grows. But look on the bright side, more applications means more of a chance of finding something that works well and you'll rarely be stuck using one terrible application simply because there's nothing else around that'll do the job you need done.
Wasn't that the whole point of what he's saying? The things he brought are things that he feels are needed, whether or not it would be possible to implement at this time.
Hrm, I wonder if this feature was funded at all by university professors.:) At least at my school the number one annoyance for professors is probably the two or three times per class that someone's cellphone rings. It's like the professors are beaten into submission too. Most times they just shake their head in disgust and go on with the lecture. The funniest (and most annoying) incident was when a classmate of mine asked the professor a question. The professor started into answering it, then the student's cellphone went off. Now, most times they'll just quickly smack the thing off like an alarm clock on a monday morning. Not this guy! He proceeded to get up and go out into the hall and take the call! I dont think the professor actually believed what had just happened as all he did was chuckle and move on. Could have been worse though, at least he had the decency to leave the room. He could have taken it right from his desk.:)
Unless there is a REAL significant advantage over linuxconf, I don't see this beinga good thing. Sure the cryptographic channels are cool but that could be added to Linuxconf. This seems like just more fragmentation of the Linux market (like having GNOME and KDE)
How would this be a bad thing? So what if there's another tool out there doing the same thing? Now you've got a choice. I thought one of the (many) battlecries of the linux community was having choice in your applications or operating systems and not being locked into using whatever the boys in Redmond said you must. This doesn't apply to just Microsoft. Choice is good. The more the better. Let people choose an application because they think its the best tool for the job, not because it's all there is.
The so called Digital Revolution is still in its infancy. I can't help but wonder if all the world was marveling at what has happening when those first factories were being built or when those first steam engines hit the tracks. Probably not. The average people on the street were probably commented about those weird, huge factories. Sure, those people working directly in those industries realized the potential of what they were doing, but most of them probably had no idea just *how* important it would be. We label periods in time in hindsight. Someone living in what we refer to as the Ice Age today wouldn't have called it that. They'd just say it was too damn cold out. We don't know really what all this technology we're developing today is going to mean for the human race. We can hypothesize and predict, sometimes we might even be right. But if the time we live in is going to be labeled the Digital Revolution, we are at the forefront of it. We're not even completely sure of what to do with. Before this can truly be called a revolution and effect everyone's lives forever the technology needs to improve (and it will), it needs to become ubiquitous (and it probably will). Today, I think we're still laying the groundwork for the real revolution which has yet to come. But for right now, "Digital Revolution" is only a marketing buzz word to me.
DoubleClick being put out of business by CNET and this new patent is definately the greater evil. All hatred for doubleclick and the privacy issues they cause aside, this is just another example of the USPTO's god awful system. You can't say one patent is wrong while saying another is great strictly on the basis that it would have an adverse effect on a company that you don't like. I don't like a company that violates my right to privacy any more than the next person and I think that any company that does ought to face strict punishment. However, the privacy issues are separate from the patent issues. Patent or not, if a company violates my privacy something needs to be done about it.
As was already stated, dont use bogomips to gauge your processors performance. bogomips are just that-- bogus. As for why your reported bogomips doubled, somewhere along the 2.3.99preN line this happened. Dunno if it was intentional or not, most likely not. My box went from a paltry 998.something to a whopping 1998.84 bogomips. It seems to have happened at 2.3.99pre3
Web based helpdesks are definately a great idea in my opinion. When I first started out at my old company, the helpdesk was run just like yours is now. People would phone us or leave us a voicemail if we weren't there. It wasn't very productive. You'd have to listen to all of your voicemail and jot down what problems people are having and then try to prioritize them. Making matters worse is when people *do* get ahold of you on the phone because no matter how important their problem is, they've got you on the phone and will expect a fix right then and there. I wont even mention the people who manage to pull you aside in the hallway. Finally, we implemented a web based helpdesk. It wasn't anything fancy but it allowed people to log and prioritize their problem. The big plus on the tech end was that we could quickly see an already prioritized list of things to do. No more mucking through all the voicemals, phone calls, and random hallway meetings. We were able to spend more time fixing problems than figuring out what to do next. After awhile, we had a nice knowledgebase that new techs as well as some of the more computer literate employees could search through to find solutions to simple problems. As it grew we added more features to it. One of the more successful ones, depending on the nature and priority of the problem, would email an appropriate tech's cellphone with a new issue that needed his attention. All in all, well worth the time spent developing it. It requires a little user education to be successful (e.g. the fact that the little cat that you have running around your screen isn't working anymore is not a high priority issue).
Slashdot Mirror
Fella, that was exactly my point there and it just zipped right by ya. Try again!
As evident by the article, the flamefest is already beginning. All the government has done is agree that OSS could be a good thing to put to use. Rather than applaud them for taking such a step, the article blasts them for how they came to their conclusions. Huh? What? The committee has ruled positively for OSS. What's the problem? Let's take a look at some of the critique the author had.
1. How does a report to the President on Free/Open software development not even mention Richard Stallman?
What the hell does that matter? Are the conclusions somehow invalid because the committee did not tout the accomplishments of RMS? This committee does not care about the holy wars that have been fought to get free software where it is today. They're looking at how viable the *software* and *methodology* of free/open software is a solution to goverment needs. So is free software about free software or just about RMS getting his props?
2. This raises another question: who knew in the community that this committee was working on the report?
Again, I fail to see the relevancy. If anything, the fact that this committee of "people who have the same old, corporate, command and control hierarchichal mindset" came to this conclusion without any influence from the free software community is a testament to the quality of free software. Oh, but they didn't invite RMS to be on the committee, nor did they make his favorite teas available to him (remember that article?) so their findings are invalid. Please spare me.
3. Did anyone notice recommendation No. 3. the ultimate goal of which is "agreeing upon a single, common licensing agreement"?
Why yes, I did notice. My god this is ridiculous. They haven't even *done* anything yet and the author is basically screaming "GPL VIOLATION!" already. Understand my friend that this a government we're talking about here. This is not XYZ company that is worried about losing some IP which would affect its bottomline. This is a goverment with very real NATIONAL SECURITY issues to deal with. I am certainly not saying that the law does not apply to them nor that they are exempt from license agreements. An observant reader who is not too busy crying fowl like the author of this article, will see recommendation No. 3. in a different way. The government knows that while they may be able to get away with quietly violation the GPL (and other free-ish licenses) for awhile, eventually they will be caught in the act and shit will hit the fan. So No. 3. is an importmant hurdle to get over and the committee would not have been doing its job if they had not mentioned it. Who knows what kind of license it will be. They might even decide on the GPL because let's face it, the government is not going to release the source to anything critical. I dont believe we're ever going to see nor would I want to see nuclear_launch_system-1.0 on freshmeat. Ever. Not in a million years. Say all the bad things you want about security through obscurity, but some things are best left secret and locked up in a vault behind 100 men (or woman!) trained to kill you with their bare hands.
Mr. Stanco is jumping the gun a bit. If you are a true believer in free software then applaud the government for taking this first step. Instead of being critical of mistakes they haven't even made yet, offer ideas on how they can make free software work for them.
All good points, but this is not his situation. He stated in the question that he no longer works for this company.
I think the important part here is that you dont work for this company anymore. Alright, so your contract with them says that you have to turn over any inventions you created while employed by them. This does not mean that you have to sign off on their patent. Noone can make you put your signature on something you dont want to, that's called duress. Now, you could refuse to endorse this patent but as you said this could be another stupid patent that the PTO grants. If you really feel that strongly that this idea/invention does not warrant a patent then the best thing you can do is make that opinion known to the PTO. I'm sure hearing that from one of the people involved in creating what's now up for a patent would carry alot of weight with the PTO. Just make sure that your argument against it is well thought out otherwise your previous employer could spin it as sour grapes.
Get on the kernel developer's mailing list and be nice... Contribute and tell them of your ideas. Eventually you'll get to know one or more people and things will come naturally.
First off, he already stated that he was on the kernel mailing list and that's where he posted the bugfix. Second, while hanging around on the list, contributing, and eventually getting to know some people is a good idea if you plan to be doing lots of work on the kernel, it should NOT be necessary if all you want to do is submit a simple bugfix. That being said, I think the guy just needs to be patient. The kernel developers are swamped with things to do but eventually someone will probably get on it.
Cool, so now you can direct sound at a specific target. I can see it now.
[Cut to The Terminator's point of view as the target is being acquired ]
Arnold: Hasta la vista, baby!
[ The terminator pulls out his gun, aims, and fires]
[ Poor victim falls to the ground as extremely high volume Britney Spears fills his head]
Poor Victim: argghhhhhhh!@#!!
[ Poor victim's head explodes ]
Arnold: I'll be back...
True, but remember, DirecPC has this exact same setup too...
.5s) is more important than upstream. Just that 'most' != /. readers
No actually, I didn't know that. Interesting.
And for most people, a fast downstream (with huge latency >
Very true, but that wasn't my point. Every single person that was just your casual web surfer (which is the majority of the people out there) that I've talked to wouldn't pay more money for a broadband connection. The increase in download speeds just wasn't enough to justify paying more each month. Not until I explained that you could rid of that extra phone line thus paying just about the same amount per month, were they sold on the idea.
Well the MSN one sounds good, but the AOL one has a problem. You still need to upload via dialup which means you cant get rid of that phone line. For me personally, aside from the speed increase, I could justify a $40/month cable modem because I could get rid of the extra phone line I was using for dialup. $20/month for an ISP and about $20/month for the phone line so going to a cable modem cost me nothing. So i dont really see too many people jumping over to AOL's satellite service just for this reason alone.
If you thought that moron driving down the highway in his SUV doing 90mph while talking on his cellphone was bad, you just wait! That'll be just what I need. Idiots in personal helicopters distracted by cellphones, crashing into my house.
I understand the concerns of the IOC, but right now, streaming video and what not over the Internet just cannot compete at *all* with a tv broadcast. Think about it. If you're really interested in watching the games would you rather watch them live in a tiny window on your monitor with crappy image quality and poor sound or wait a few hours and watch them on tv with a good, big picture and good sound? I know exactly which one I would choose. Even with broadband, an internet video feed can't compete with your television.
Maybe for the next olympic games that will have changed and the IOC's fears will be justified. However, when internet video feeds get to the point where they equal the quality of tv, the big networks who pay out the cash for broadcasting rights will be streaming video over the internet themselves. Hrm, tv advertising revenue and internet broadcasting revenue at the same time. They'll definately be doing it.
bah! Enjoy those 1/2 a sheet of paper problems while you can! Soon enough you'll long for the days when you could fit two problems per page. :)
Isn't it somewhat disheartening that a company has to come out and publicly give their blessing for people to tinker with what they own? Yes, I know Tivo couldn't stop people from hacking up their products even if they were so inclined, but this should be implicit. If you bought it, you own it and can do whatever the hell you want to it and no company anywhere or anytime should be able to say anything about it except that you've voided the warranty.
Hrm, actually I think you've misread the document. The document you have linked to does not contain the appellate judge's ruling but rather Napster's application/argument for a stay against the injunction. Take a look at the last page. It's signed by the lawyers for Napster. So this is not one judge tearing apart the ruling of another judge but lawyers telling an appellate judge why the previous judge screwed up. It was still a good read though.
Of course, it *is* 2am. Maybe I misread it in which case disregard
Linux has less and less become an "underground" (even "subculture" is losing applicability), and sometimes I think this has a negative impact on the OS. I see many of my friends who take that aspect seriously switching to less popular operating systems like OpenBSD or Be.
So what this tells me is that your friends weren't using linux because they thought it was a superior OS, but to have some sense of elitism in using an OS that most people didn't. This is just silly. However, the same attitude exists everywhere. In music for example. Your favorite underground band finds some wide success and lots of people hear about them. Suddenly this band and sold out and become trendy. You dont like them anymore even though they're more or less putting out the same quality of music that they've also put out.
I don't think commercial adoption of Linux had much if anything to do with any loss of stability in the OS. The fact of the matter is that Linux has grown more and more complex with each release. Obviously the more complexity you introduce into a system the more problems there are going to be with it. Add to that the fact that this code gets ported to run on numerous different architectures introducing even more complexity. No matter how good of a programmer you are, you can't avoid bugs. Still, given the complexity issues I've state above, I think the kernel developers have done a hell of a job.
Now, quality of applications. That's a different story, but it has nothing to do with the OS itself. No matter what OS you are using there are going to be great applications and there are going to be total crap applications. You just need to weed out the good from the bad which, admittedly, is getting harder and harder as the number of applications available for Linux grows. But look on the bright side, more applications means more of a chance of finding something that works well and you'll rarely be stuck using one terrible application simply because there's nothing else around that'll do the job you need done.
Wasn't that the whole point of what he's saying? The things he brought are things that he feels are needed, whether or not it would be possible to implement at this time.
Who needs to flame the linuxsucks.com people? They're in for a far more vile fate, a good ole slashdot effect.
Hrm, I wonder if this feature was funded at all by university professors. :) At least at my school the number one annoyance for professors is probably the two or three times per class that someone's cellphone rings. It's like the professors are beaten into submission too. Most times they just shake their head in disgust and go on with the lecture. The funniest (and most annoying) incident was when a classmate of mine asked the professor a question. The professor started into answering it, then the student's cellphone went off. Now, most times they'll just quickly smack the thing off like an alarm clock on a monday morning. Not this guy! He proceeded to get up and go out into the hall and take the call! I dont think the professor actually believed what had just happened as all he did was chuckle and move on. Could have been worse though, at least he had the decency to leave the room. He could have taken it right from his desk. :)
Unless there is a REAL significant advantage over linuxconf, I don't see this beinga good thing. Sure the cryptographic channels are cool but that could be added to Linuxconf. This seems like just more fragmentation of the Linux market (like having GNOME and KDE)
How would this be a bad thing? So what if there's another tool out there doing the same thing? Now you've got a choice. I thought one of the (many) battlecries of the linux community was having choice in your applications or operating systems and not being locked into using whatever the boys in Redmond said you must. This doesn't apply to just Microsoft. Choice is good. The more the better. Let people choose an application because they think its the best tool for the job, not because it's all there is.
The so called Digital Revolution is still in its infancy. I can't help but wonder if all the world was marveling at what has happening when those first factories were being built or when those first steam engines hit the tracks. Probably not. The average people on the street were probably commented about those weird, huge factories. Sure, those people working directly in those industries realized the potential of what they were doing, but most of them probably had no idea just *how* important it would be. We label periods in time in hindsight. Someone living in what we refer to as the Ice Age today wouldn't have called it that. They'd just say it was too damn cold out. We don't know really what all this technology we're developing today is going to mean for the human race. We can hypothesize and predict, sometimes we might even be right. But if the time we live in is going to be labeled the Digital Revolution, we are at the forefront of it. We're not even completely sure of what to do with. Before this can truly be called a revolution and effect everyone's lives forever the technology needs to improve (and it will), it needs to become ubiquitous (and it probably will). Today, I think we're still laying the groundwork for the real revolution which has yet to come. But for right now, "Digital Revolution" is only a marketing buzz word to me.
DoubleClick being put out of business by CNET and this new patent is definately the greater evil. All hatred for doubleclick and the privacy issues they cause aside, this is just another example of the USPTO's god awful system. You can't say one patent is wrong while saying another is great strictly on the basis that it would have an adverse effect on a company that you don't like. I don't like a company that violates my right to privacy any more than the next person and I think that any company that does ought to face strict punishment. However, the privacy issues are separate from the patent issues. Patent or not, if a company violates my privacy something needs to be done about it.
As was already stated, dont use bogomips to gauge your processors performance. bogomips are just that-- bogus. As for why your reported bogomips doubled, somewhere along the 2.3.99preN line this happened. Dunno if it was intentional or not, most likely not. My box went from a paltry 998.something to a whopping 1998.84 bogomips. It seems to have happened at 2.3.99pre3
Web based helpdesks are definately a great idea in my opinion. When I first started out at my old company, the helpdesk was run just like yours is now. People would phone us or leave us a voicemail if we weren't there. It wasn't very productive. You'd have to listen to all of your voicemail and jot down what problems people are having and then try to prioritize them. Making matters worse is when people *do* get ahold of you on the phone because no matter how important their problem is, they've got you on the phone and will expect a fix right then and there. I wont even mention the people who manage to pull you aside in the hallway. Finally, we implemented a web based helpdesk. It wasn't anything fancy but it allowed people to log and prioritize their problem. The big plus on the tech end was that we could quickly see an already prioritized list of things to do. No more mucking through all the voicemals, phone calls, and random hallway meetings. We were able to spend more time fixing problems than figuring out what to do next. After awhile, we had a nice knowledgebase that new techs as well as some of the more computer literate employees could search through to find solutions to simple problems. As it grew we added more features to it. One of the more successful ones, depending on the nature and priority of the problem, would email an appropriate tech's cellphone with a new issue that needed his attention. All in all, well worth the time spent developing it. It requires a little user education to be successful (e.g. the fact that the little cat that you have running around your screen isn't working anymore is not a high priority issue).