The important question to me is does each application platform scale with commodity hardware? If so, then the more important question is which takes less time to develop and what is the availability and price of programmers for each platform? Hardware is cheap. Development time is expensive.
Benchmarks, while to completely useless, are almost completely useless.
I don't recall anyone EVER claiming that Java's execution speed kicks ass... I don't think execution speed was ever a big selling point for Java.
Our moon pulls earth's solid surface out of shape too. The amount of motion is much smaller than the ocean's but it is not inconsiderable. Can anyone closer to their Geology 101 class or Astronomy 101 class remember how many inches the crust moves tidally? (Okay, cm's?)
I dunno. Someone who has been on/. for >5 years and has only made 30 comments might be very smart indeed. People who talk a lot may seem smart, but... (This is from a guy who talks all the time, BTW)
I'm just curious what it is about SGML that you think makes it "unusable?" SGML is perfectly usable. I don't think there is anything "easier" about XML for people writing documents. There's quite a bit easier about writing fully compliant parsers for each, but that's a different story. XML just makes some simplfying assumptions, but since every valid XML document is also a valid SGML document, I'm not sure how SGML can be said to be "unusable."
Negative. If you compromise the key, you merely send a properly signed message revoking the execution priveldge for everything else signed with that key. The code to do it will be built in to the hardware. You won't need to trick someone into running ANYTHING.
The CPUs will have keys used to verify the signatures. Any number of keys signed with the hardware key may be generated. But how software behaves based on these keys will be up to the software. In other words, any vendor (Microsoft, for example) could interoperate today and then decide all at once to refuse to interoperate. The problem isn't that it impossible to use a trusted computing architecture in a free and open way, the problem is that it can change at any time and as the person who bought the hardware and software, you are the only party in the transaction who will have absolutely no choice in the matter whatsoever. Still think it is okay? Then go ahead and buy the stuff.
I, for one, will NEVER, ABSOLUTELY NEVER buy any device with this technology in it. And I'd think you'd have to be insane to buy it. Especially businesses. Thsi creates an absolutely unacceptable risk. Imagine a key compromise. Every computer system that used the key could be shut down. What does that do to, say, a bank?
I think this whole idea is inherently nuts. The only people who like it are the monopolists. That should make you think twice.
I can imagine 10 disaster scenarios for every benefit this technology offers.
Fundamentally, whose computer is it? My guess is that Windows OSs will require that TCA be active. My guess is that Microsoft won't allow untrusted code to run, or, if they do, they won't allow untrusted code to use their data. They can kill Free Software just by making a key that will allow interoperation with Windows or.NET too expensive for Free Software developers.
RMSs article points up many of the potential abuses. I don't need to reiterate them here. The point is not that the proposed system will be abused, but that it is the first step in creating a totalitarian computing enviornment. This is not dissimilar in principle to requiring you to give DNA and fingerprints to the government, or to a corporation in order to do business. That the system may not be abused right now doesn't mean that the idea isn't fundamentally wrong.
The military hardly ever uses consumer electronics in the serious applications. Everything is "milspec."
No, it's not the military that should be fighting against this. It is every IT department on earth. Why would ANY business ever buy a piece of equipment that permits an outside entity to muck around with it, or even disable it? In this nightmare future, there is no such thing as a "production" system, because entites outside can change or disable the system configuration at will.
Defenders of this technology say, "Yes, but they won't do that." Maybe not, but how can you be sure? What if you are in a business that competes with one of your own vendors? Obviously, such conduct would be illegal, and, as we all know, companies never do anything illegal. Also, this is an exciting new opportunity for a DoS attack. Suppose you have a production server that allows file uploads for legit reasons? If people upload improper content, no biggie, you just delete it, right? Not anymore. Someone uploads a renegade copy of Sierra's "Cooking Light" software and BAM! One of your production servers shuts down.
Now I realize these scenarios are unlikely, but my point is that they are not impossible. And that alone should scare the excrement out of any CIO.
Besides, its not all that unlikely. Let me tell you a little story from my own personal experience. I worked for a "pre web" electronic commerce operation. We used AIX and Netware. TCP/IP was just becoming a big deal (although the web wasn't here yet -- it existed, but basically just at CERN and other research institutions), so we decided we wanted to do our IPC over sockets. This meant we had to install TCP/IP NLMs (remember NLMs?) on all of our Netware servers. I got this job.
Now, I wasn't a CNE (I probably shouldn't have been given the job), but it was just installing an NLM on our test servers, and I knew my TCP/IP, so no big deal. We had five test servers. We purchased 5 legal copies of the NLM. I took one of the floppies and went from machine to machine, installing. Five minutes later, EVERY SINGLE EMPLOYEE IN THE COMPANY, about 45,000 people all over the USA, started getting those annoying netware broadcast messages (this is the MS-DOS era folks) that a Novell Software License was being violated on the network. These messages came every few minutes.
This was my early experience with digital rights management. I got it cleaned up within the next twenty minutes, but you had better believe that it is not a good thing to annoy an entire company, even for half an hour.
This is NOT A GOOD THING. An inexperienced person can install software on a test system and interfere with an entire corporation. Now imagine this with outside entities able to reach in to you corporate network and do things like this.
If I were a CIO, I would have a policy that forbade ANY DRM enabled equipment to be attached to my corporate network. Period. And I would see to it that every vendor I worked with got a copy of this policy.
Gene Spafford (one of the foremost computer security experts, and founder of COAST, the reliable systems project at Perdue University) defines a secure computer system as one that does "what you expect, when you expect it." No DRM equipped system could possibly meet this definition. Ever.
Think about this when you are making purchasing decisions and setting coprorate policy.
Except Linux is being adopted, all over the place. We've seen stories galore in this forum and others about Linux being adopted for servers, point-of-sale, and, yes, even a desktop standard. And don't bother pointing out that this is only a handful of companies. It was only a handful of companies in the server market at first as well. We've been hearing "It'll never fly, Orville" at every stage up to now. I expect that continue.
What Linux is not doing is breaking Microsoft's absolute and total control of the OEM distribution channel. The desktop has been the last market for Linux to penetrate because it is practically impossible to go into your local CompuMegaElectrodeHut and buy a PC with Linux on it.
When you can, Linux on the desktop will grow. It will still take time. But it will grow. Many companies are ready to produce apps for Linux, but they don't see the market justifying the effort.
Linux might still remain a minority of desktops, but it can't play with the market if it is ruthlessly excluded from the market.
Yeah, that's why I said it was nothing personal. More often than not it is fat-fingering or muscle memory, sut somtimes people clearly don't know the different words (although not in this case). It was just a boiling over; not aimed at you!
Okay, I know spelling/grammar flaming isn't right, and this isn't anything personal (I make flagrant errors due to fast typing an no proofreading myself), but I am really beginning to be bugged by people mixing up "site" and "sight." A "site" is a place, a location. A "sight" is something to see, something seen or worth seeing. So you have a web "site" and a "sight" to see. This is not to mention the word "cite," which is a verb meaning "to refer to" or "to quote."
How does this jibe with the claim that "TPJ is totally reader supported?" I don't read the mag, so I don't know if it has advertising, but they either don't, or they are lying when they say they are totally reader supported.
Okay, IANAL (big surprise), but I thought there was a principle in american law, something about "competent jurisdiction," which means that all US courts are bound to recognize decisions of all other "competent" courts. In other words, lawyers in a case may cite case law from other jurisdictions. A judge is ALWAYS free to make his/her own decision, even if the Supreme Court has set a precedent in the other direction. It is just that a state or district judge who does so should fully expect to be reversed by a higher judge citing the higher court's precedent.
It is easy for any judge to create new law. It is much, much harder to make it stick.
My impression (once again, IANAL) is that there are no hard and fast rules about precedent. Merely tradition. So, in your example, a judge handling a criminal case in New York state is much more likely to give credence to a predent from their Federal Circuit Court than from another Federal Circuit Court, but they are not obligated to do so. In fact, a judge might believe that other court's judgement was right, and their own circuit court's judgement was wrong, and could, in that case decide based on the other court's decision and expect the whole mess to be resolved by a higher court. Furthermore, I would think our New York state court judge would give a case from ANY federal court more credence than a decision from another state court, but there is nothing to say our judge could not consider another state court decision, especially if that state court says something about an issue that New York statute and case law says nothing about.
Once again, IANAL. So I'm really just flapping my gums. But that's the impression I have about law in these here parts. Any lawyers out there to set me straight?
Since I first started reading and posting to/. I have resisted the motion that there is "a geek community." "Geek" is a person with a certain kind of interest in things scientific and technological (not necessarily in that order). Beyond that, in my experience it is as varied and diverse a collection of individuals as you could hope to find.
Look at any issue of politics that arises in this forum. I see plenty of my fellow "tax-and-spend" liberals and hordes of reactionary libertarians. Hardly a herd of like-thinkers. Look the the flamewars that emerge between Windows/Linux advicates, Linux/BSD advocates, GPL fans/GPL opponents, hell, emacs/vi. "Geeks" are not some sort of monoculture. And people who claim they speak for the "geek community" are doing so because they want to take a position in front of it. In other words, they are trying to gain power from association with a perceived collective of people.
But we aren't a monoculture. We aren't even a culture -- we're a shared enthusiasm for techie things. There are communities within geekdom, but there isn't a single community, a single outlook, a single political stance. I'm tired of people speaking for me. This guy doesn't know me, he doesn't speak for me, and there mere accident that we might agree about one or many things does not give him license to claim my voice.
I have a feeling this would depend on whether you are talking about the Clinton DoJ or the Bush the Younger DoJ. I think the present administration is generally less keen on the Sherman Act than the previous administration.
I think Microsoft's recent increase in agression is a sign that they think so too.
I leave it up to you whether that is a good thing or not.
Okay, I never write "mod this guy up" posts, but MOD THIS GUY UP. I decided to write this instead of posting a redundant message. He/she said what I wanted to say. We've talked about writing our congresspersons to gripe about bad laws, here's a chance to write to support a (fairly) good one.
Oh, yeah. Go ahead and write to Zoe Lofgren if you live in the state and district that Zoe represents. If not, write the letter to your congressperson, and your state's two senators. Be sure to identify the bill. According to the Congresswoman's web site, the bill doesn't have a calendar number yet (HR-somenumber), so be sure to write that you are supporting the "Digital Choice and Freedom Act."
Do make the contribution to the campaign of each. True, they might not vote as you'd like. But believe me, even a hundred checks coming in all saying they support the Digital Choice and Freedom Act will make them think about it seriously.
So here's our chance to get the public back in the Republic. Do it!
(Oh, yeah -- and like the parent of the previous poster said, join the EFF. I did. I feel good and I got nice sticker for my laptop lid!)
Of course, the reason could be that you're wrong. Maybe they are really nice and you're paranoid.
I think the previous poster was correct. The only intuitive interface is the nipple. All else is learned. (I know this is a famous quote. Who said it and how did he/she phrase it exactly? Anyone remember?).
We are really talking about the definition of "intuitive interface," a noun phrase, not the defintion of the adjective "intuitive."
As I understand it, it is GNU if the FSF controls the copyright. There are advantages. The GPL guarantees that the code is always yours (and everyone else's) to do with as you (they) please, but the Free Software Foundation owning the copyright means they will defend GPL violations and you don't have to. (I'm not speaking for GNU/FSF here, and I don't know that they have ever done this, so take a very large grain of salt here). A quick check of their web site shows a good place to start researching to be http://www.gnu.org/software/devel.html. That's there start page for people who want to develop GNU. Links from there should explain their position (and possibly contradict everything I've said, but they're GNU and I am not, so listen to them, not me).
I think one might reasonably conclude that if I know the far less common word "euphony," that I know the much more commonly used word "cacophony." The problem is that many people think "cacophony" means merely "loud noise," when it really refers to the feeling the noise would engender. Cacophony (without running to my Funk & Wagnalls) means a jarring and unpleasant sound, whereas euphony means a pleasant sound; implying a certain satisfaction of the ear. Neither word says anything about volume or intensity of sound, but sloppy usage has made "cacophony" an imprecise word for many readers. I used the phrase "antithesis of euphony" because I wanted to steer people to my specific meaning. "Linux" is, well, almost euphonious, whereas "GNU/Linux" is definitely cacaphonous. I used the rarer word becuase I wanted to be precise.
Gee. Guess I should have read the actual FAQ before I posted. No, wait. I'm a slashdotter! I defend myself by saying I was answering a post, not the article, so its okay that I didn't read the article... Thanks for the pointer, though...
While I agree with you about the lack of a working "Hurd," I totally disagree with you about them "contributing little." They contributed most of the systems software, compilers, and libraries that are used to build everything on your Linux (er, GNU/Linux) system. They created the license that guarantees that a programmer who gives away his code will be paid in kind. Some people are definitely hostile to the GPL, but an awful lot of us write Free Software (meaning GPL'd software) becuase we derive a lot of benefit from everyone else's Free Software and we want to keep that going.
Now, I have called it "Linux," and will continue to call it "Linux" simply because I think "GNU/Linux" is the antithesis of euphony (how's that for a pompous phrase?). Also, as an aside, do they insist that it be called GNU/FreeBSD? Don't the BSDs come with a bunch of GNU software? Or am I missing something? And do they insist that it be called GNU/Solaris when people install gcc and bash on the box? In other words, I don't agree with the FSF on this.
But to suggest that they have contributed litte is either displaying surprising malice or surprising ignorance. The FSF is one of the key reasons we have the goods today. I'd be more than willing to bet the by lines of code alone, the FSF's contribution to the average distribution dwarfs that of the Linux kernel. The FSF is based around a philosophy; an ideology in fact. And they evangelize that ideology. They want to persude you that their beliefs are right. The regard code politically. I think very few people do right now. But with DRM, Palladium, the DMCA, and many other developments, I think it is going to be more and more common.
In other words, I think the FSF's greatest contribution may turn out to be their ideology, and not their code at all. Time will tell on that point. In the meantime, even though I buy into their philosophy, I still will call it "Linux." Guess I'm not a True Believer, but rather a true believer.
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The important question to me is does each application platform scale with commodity hardware? If so, then the more important question is which takes less time to develop and what is the availability and price of programmers for each platform? Hardware is cheap. Development time is expensive.
Benchmarks, while to completely useless, are almost completely useless.
I don't recall anyone EVER claiming that Java's execution speed kicks ass... I don't think execution speed was ever a big selling point for Java.
Our moon pulls earth's solid surface out of shape too. The amount of motion is much smaller than the ocean's but it is not inconsiderable. Can anyone closer to their Geology 101 class or Astronomy 101 class remember how many inches the crust moves tidally? (Okay, cm's?)
I dunno. Someone who has been on /. for >5 years and has only made 30 comments might be very smart indeed. People who talk a lot may seem smart, but... (This is from a guy who talks all the time, BTW)
I'm just curious what it is about SGML that you think makes it "unusable?" SGML is perfectly usable. I don't think there is anything "easier" about XML for people writing documents. There's quite a bit easier about writing fully compliant parsers for each, but that's a different story. XML just makes some simplfying assumptions, but since every valid XML document is also a valid SGML document, I'm not sure how SGML can be said to be "unusable."
Negative. If you compromise the key, you merely send a properly signed message revoking the execution priveldge for everything else signed with that key. The code to do it will be built in to the hardware. You won't need to trick someone into running ANYTHING.
The CPUs will have keys used to verify the signatures. Any number of keys signed with the hardware key may be generated. But how software behaves based on these keys will be up to the software. In other words, any vendor (Microsoft, for example) could interoperate today and then decide all at once to refuse to interoperate. The problem isn't that it impossible to use a trusted computing architecture in a free and open way, the problem is that it can change at any time and as the person who bought the hardware and software, you are the only party in the transaction who will have absolutely no choice in the matter whatsoever. Still think it is okay? Then go ahead and buy the stuff.
.NET too expensive for Free Software developers.
I, for one, will NEVER, ABSOLUTELY NEVER buy any device with this technology in it. And I'd think you'd have to be insane to buy it. Especially businesses. Thsi creates an absolutely unacceptable risk. Imagine a key compromise. Every computer system that used the key could be shut down. What does that do to, say, a bank?
I think this whole idea is inherently nuts. The only people who like it are the monopolists. That should make you think twice.
I can imagine 10 disaster scenarios for every benefit this technology offers.
Fundamentally, whose computer is it? My guess is that Windows OSs will require that TCA be active. My guess is that Microsoft won't allow untrusted code to run, or, if they do, they won't allow untrusted code to use their data. They can kill Free Software just by making a key that will allow interoperation with Windows or
RMSs article points up many of the potential abuses. I don't need to reiterate them here. The point is not that the proposed system will be abused, but that it is the first step in creating a totalitarian computing enviornment. This is not dissimilar in principle to requiring you to give DNA and fingerprints to the government, or to a corporation in order to do business. That the system may not be abused right now doesn't mean that the idea isn't fundamentally wrong.
Not to nit-pick, but I hope you mean 1993 or so. We didn't have Linux, Yggdrasil, or 386SX's in 1983.
Actually, my personal idea for radical reform? Draft legislators from the pool of registered voters. Yep. Just like jury duty. Citizen legislators.
The military hardly ever uses consumer electronics in the serious applications. Everything is "milspec."
No, it's not the military that should be fighting against this. It is every IT department on earth. Why would ANY business ever buy a piece of equipment that permits an outside entity to muck around with it, or even disable it? In this nightmare future, there is no such thing as a "production" system, because entites outside can change or disable the system configuration at will.
Defenders of this technology say, "Yes, but they won't do that." Maybe not, but how can you be sure? What if you are in a business that competes with one of your own vendors? Obviously, such conduct would be illegal, and, as we all know, companies never do anything illegal. Also, this is an exciting new opportunity for a DoS attack. Suppose you have a production server that allows file uploads for legit reasons? If people upload improper content, no biggie, you just delete it, right? Not anymore. Someone uploads a renegade copy of Sierra's "Cooking Light" software and BAM! One of your production servers shuts down.
Now I realize these scenarios are unlikely, but my point is that they are not impossible. And that alone should scare the excrement out of any CIO.
Besides, its not all that unlikely. Let me tell you a little story from my own personal experience. I worked for a "pre web" electronic commerce operation. We used AIX and Netware. TCP/IP was just becoming a big deal (although the web wasn't here yet -- it existed, but basically just at CERN and other research institutions), so we decided we wanted to do our IPC over sockets. This meant we had to install TCP/IP NLMs (remember NLMs?) on all of our Netware servers. I got this job.
Now, I wasn't a CNE (I probably shouldn't have been given the job), but it was just installing an NLM on our test servers, and I knew my TCP/IP, so no big deal. We had five test servers. We purchased 5 legal copies of the NLM. I took one of the floppies and went from machine to machine, installing. Five minutes later, EVERY SINGLE EMPLOYEE IN THE COMPANY, about 45,000 people all over the USA, started getting those annoying netware broadcast messages (this is the MS-DOS era folks) that a Novell Software License was being violated on the network. These messages came every few minutes.
This was my early experience with digital rights management. I got it cleaned up within the next twenty minutes, but you had better believe that it is not a good thing to annoy an entire company, even for half an hour.
This is NOT A GOOD THING. An inexperienced person can install software on a test system and interfere with an entire corporation. Now imagine this with outside entities able to reach in to you corporate network and do things like this.
If I were a CIO, I would have a policy that forbade ANY DRM enabled equipment to be attached to my corporate network. Period. And I would see to it that every vendor I worked with got a copy of this policy.
Gene Spafford (one of the foremost computer security experts, and founder of COAST, the reliable systems project at Perdue University) defines a secure computer system as one that does "what you expect, when you expect it." No DRM equipped system could possibly meet this definition. Ever.
Think about this when you are making purchasing decisions and setting coprorate policy.
Except Linux is being adopted, all over the place. We've seen stories galore in this forum and others about Linux being adopted for servers, point-of-sale, and, yes, even a desktop standard. And don't bother pointing out that this is only a handful of companies. It was only a handful of companies in the server market at first as well. We've been hearing "It'll never fly, Orville" at every stage up to now. I expect that continue.
What Linux is not doing is breaking Microsoft's absolute and total control of the OEM distribution channel. The desktop has been the last market for Linux to penetrate because it is practically impossible to go into your local CompuMegaElectrodeHut and buy a PC with Linux on it.
When you can, Linux on the desktop will grow. It will still take time. But it will grow. Many companies are ready to produce apps for Linux, but they don't see the market justifying the effort.
Linux might still remain a minority of desktops, but it can't play with the market if it is ruthlessly excluded from the market.
Yeah, that's why I said it was nothing personal. More often than not it is fat-fingering or muscle memory, sut somtimes people clearly don't know the different words (although not in this case). It was just a boiling over; not aimed at you!
BEM? You're close. Bug-Eyed Monster.
Okay, I know spelling/grammar flaming isn't right, and this isn't anything personal (I make flagrant errors due to fast typing an no proofreading myself), but I am really beginning to be bugged by people mixing up "site" and "sight." A "site" is a place, a location. A "sight" is something to see, something seen or worth seeing. So you have a web "site" and a "sight" to see. This is not to mention the word "cite," which is a verb meaning "to refer to" or "to quote."
Cite, site, sight.
Sorry about that. Phew. Now, on topic:
No LGMs? Any BEMs?
How does this jibe with the claim that "TPJ is totally reader supported?" I don't read the mag, so I don't know if it has advertising, but they either don't, or they are lying when they say they are totally reader supported.
Okay, IANAL (big surprise), but I thought there was a principle in american law, something about "competent jurisdiction," which means that all US courts are bound to recognize decisions of all other "competent" courts. In other words, lawyers in a case may cite case law from other jurisdictions. A judge is ALWAYS free to make his/her own decision, even if the Supreme Court has set a precedent in the other direction. It is just that a state or district judge who does so should fully expect to be reversed by a higher judge citing the higher court's precedent.
It is easy for any judge to create new law. It is much, much harder to make it stick.
My impression (once again, IANAL) is that there are no hard and fast rules about precedent. Merely tradition. So, in your example, a judge handling a criminal case in New York state is much more likely to give credence to a predent from their Federal Circuit Court than from another Federal Circuit Court, but they are not obligated to do so. In fact, a judge might believe that other court's judgement was right, and their own circuit court's judgement was wrong, and could, in that case decide based on the other court's decision and expect the whole mess to be resolved by a higher court. Furthermore, I would think our New York state court judge would give a case from ANY federal court more credence than a decision from another state court, but there is nothing to say our judge could not consider another state court decision, especially if that state court says something about an issue that New York statute and case law says nothing about.
Once again, IANAL. So I'm really just flapping my gums. But that's the impression I have about law in these here parts. Any lawyers out there to set me straight?
Since I first started reading and posting to /. I have resisted the motion that there is "a geek community." "Geek" is a person with a certain kind of interest in things scientific and technological (not necessarily in that order). Beyond that, in my experience it is as varied and diverse a collection of individuals as you could hope to find.
Look at any issue of politics that arises in this forum. I see plenty of my fellow "tax-and-spend" liberals and hordes of reactionary libertarians. Hardly a herd of like-thinkers. Look the the flamewars that emerge between Windows/Linux advicates, Linux/BSD advocates, GPL fans/GPL opponents, hell, emacs/vi. "Geeks" are not some sort of monoculture. And people who claim they speak for the "geek community" are doing so because they want to take a position in front of it. In other words, they are trying to gain power from association with a perceived collective of people.
But we aren't a monoculture. We aren't even a culture -- we're a shared enthusiasm for techie things. There are communities within geekdom, but there isn't a single community, a single outlook, a single political stance. I'm tired of people speaking for me. This guy doesn't know me, he doesn't speak for me, and there mere accident that we might agree about one or many things does not give him license to claim my voice.
I have a feeling this would depend on whether you are talking about the Clinton DoJ or the Bush the Younger DoJ. I think the present administration is generally less keen on the Sherman Act than the previous administration.
I think Microsoft's recent increase in agression is a sign that they think so too.
I leave it up to you whether that is a good thing or not.
Okay, I never write "mod this guy up" posts, but MOD THIS GUY UP. I decided to write this instead of posting a redundant message. He/she said what I wanted to say. We've talked about writing our congresspersons to gripe about bad laws, here's a chance to write to support a (fairly) good one.
Oh, yeah. Go ahead and write to Zoe Lofgren if you live in the state and district that Zoe represents. If not, write the letter to your congressperson, and your state's two senators. Be sure to identify the bill. According to the Congresswoman's web site, the bill doesn't have a calendar number yet (HR-somenumber), so be sure to write that you are supporting the "Digital Choice and Freedom Act."
Do make the contribution to the campaign of each. True, they might not vote as you'd like. But believe me, even a hundred checks coming in all saying they support the Digital Choice and Freedom Act will make them think about it seriously.
So here's our chance to get the public back in the Republic. Do it!
(Oh, yeah -- and like the parent of the previous poster said, join the EFF. I did. I feel good and I got nice sticker for my laptop lid!)
Of course, the reason could be that you're wrong. Maybe they are really nice and you're paranoid.
I think the previous poster was correct. The only intuitive interface is the nipple. All else is learned. (I know this is a famous quote. Who said it and how did he/she phrase it exactly? Anyone remember?).
We are really talking about the definition of "intuitive interface," a noun phrase, not the defintion of the adjective "intuitive."
Are you kidding? I never read the titles of comments! ;-)
Of course, it couls have been a reference to "Pygmalion," the source material for "My Fair Lady."
As I understand it, it is GNU if the FSF controls the copyright. There are advantages. The GPL guarantees that the code is always yours (and everyone else's) to do with as you (they) please, but the Free Software Foundation owning the copyright means they will defend GPL violations and you don't have to. (I'm not speaking for GNU/FSF here, and I don't know that they have ever done this, so take a very large grain of salt here). A quick check of their web site shows a good place to start researching to be http://www.gnu.org/software/devel.html. That's there start page for people who want to develop GNU. Links from there should explain their position (and possibly contradict everything I've said, but they're GNU and I am not, so listen to them, not me).
You are forgetting directed verdicts... Unless the judge uses e-mail...
I think one might reasonably conclude that if I know the far less common word "euphony," that I know the much more commonly used word "cacophony." The problem is that many people think "cacophony" means merely "loud noise," when it really refers to the feeling the noise would engender. Cacophony (without running to my Funk & Wagnalls) means a jarring and unpleasant sound, whereas euphony means a pleasant sound; implying a certain satisfaction of the ear. Neither word says anything about volume or intensity of sound, but sloppy usage has made "cacophony" an imprecise word for many readers. I used the phrase "antithesis of euphony" because I wanted to steer people to my specific meaning. "Linux" is, well, almost euphonious, whereas "GNU/Linux" is definitely cacaphonous. I used the rarer word becuase I wanted to be precise.
;-)
Also to show off.
Gee. Guess I should have read the actual FAQ before I posted. No, wait. I'm a slashdotter! I defend myself by saying I was answering a post, not the article, so its okay that I didn't read the article... Thanks for the pointer, though...
While I agree with you about the lack of a working "Hurd," I totally disagree with you about them "contributing little." They contributed most of the systems software, compilers, and libraries that are used to build everything on your Linux (er, GNU/Linux) system. They created the license that guarantees that a programmer who gives away his code will be paid in kind. Some people are definitely hostile to the GPL, but an awful lot of us write Free Software (meaning GPL'd software) becuase we derive a lot of benefit from everyone else's Free Software and we want to keep that going.
Now, I have called it "Linux," and will continue to call it "Linux" simply because I think "GNU/Linux" is the antithesis of euphony (how's that for a pompous phrase?). Also, as an aside, do they insist that it be called GNU/FreeBSD? Don't the BSDs come with a bunch of GNU software? Or am I missing something? And do they insist that it be called GNU/Solaris when people install gcc and bash on the box? In other words, I don't agree with the FSF on this.
But to suggest that they have contributed litte is either displaying surprising malice or surprising ignorance. The FSF is one of the key reasons we have the goods today. I'd be more than willing to bet the by lines of code alone, the FSF's contribution to the average distribution dwarfs that of the Linux kernel. The FSF is based around a philosophy; an ideology in fact. And they evangelize that ideology. They want to persude you that their beliefs are right. The regard code politically. I think very few people do right now. But with DRM, Palladium, the DMCA, and many other developments, I think it is going to be more and more common.
In other words, I think the FSF's greatest contribution may turn out to be their ideology, and not their code at all. Time will tell on that point. In the meantime, even though I buy into their philosophy, I still will call it "Linux." Guess I'm not a True Believer, but rather a true believer.