That's the impression I got, too. I had some correspondence with Amazon a while back, with their customer service folks and ultimately with their legal staff, regarding this patent problem.
My one simple suggestion was this: drop the suit. Use the patent if you must to cover your ass (so someone else doesn't come and sue you for infringement on something dumb like this), but don't use it to bash a competitor.
Jeff, just drop the suit. That's all I ask. Then, I can start buying books from Amazon again (and there are a bunch I want to buy).
For God's sake, moderate this man up! This is a real bitch of mine, too. I like to know *what* functionality was added, or *what* bug was squashed, rather than knowing what files were changed and how many lines of code this affected.
Certainly this information is available in the kernel changelogs, or on someone's site, or something. Is it really that much more work to process that instead of doing a recursive diff of one version against the last to obtain stats?
There is at least one problem that I can see with an implementation of a devfs.
Device Insertion.
With a devfs, devices are named automatically by the order in which they are discovered. Altering the discovery/probe routine, or the type of host adaptor, or any number of other things, could potentially wreak havoc when administering a large system. I have experience with this from Digital Unix (which uses a BSD-ish kernel configuration setup so that, if necessary, devices can be hard-wired to a particular place).
Imagine this: I have a large machine with a large external RAID array on, say, an HSZ80 array controller. The admin before me numbered devices on that array in a somewhat haphazard fashion, whether through incompetence or necessity-at-the-time. Now, I need to expand the array, adding disks and devices. Because I've been painted into a corner, I have to export a device address from the array (target,lun - the system already has the bus number) that lies between two existing entries. This is no problem for a running system, as the new device will likely be added at the end of the chain, becoming "disk89" or somesuch. Upon bootup, however, the rules change. What was "disk89" is now "disk33", and/etc/fstab is now completely incorrect. Digital Unix 5 will follow a path somewhat like this. Hopefully they will find a way to remedy this situation, or my heart will bleed for their FSEs.
There must be a way to "hardwire" devices to particular addresses. Yes, a good admin will change/etc/fstab. However, there are environments wherein this is just not feasible. I realize that this problem also exists with hard-wired/dev entries, and that it is conceptually more difficult to solve with those. What I would suggest is a "mapping", wherein devices can be arbitrarily and automatically named, in a way that will allow for an administratively simple solution to the problem I've outlined above. I am sure there are other problems that I've not yet thought of, and many answers to those problems, but I choose at this time to exercise my profound penchant for academic laziness.
That said, I applaud the inclusion of a devfs to the kernel. This is something that has been on my wishlist for a long time, and it will make some future work I will do with Linux a lot easier and more robust.
Here is a copy of a letter to the editor that I submitted to the St. Louis Post Dispatch. If it passes muster here, I'd like some feedback, and I will put it in a "hardcopy" form and mail it to several newspapers.
8----- SNIP -----8 Dear Sir,
I have written to bring to your attention and the attention of your readers the situation unfolding within the DVD video disc industry. First, though, a little history.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the movie industry decried the entry into the market of video cassette recorders as ruinous to their industry. They were all too happy to let people rent video cassettes from stores, but they absolutely did not want consumers to be able to record their own videos. They failed in that attempt to deny consumers choice. Fast forward to the present, and you will find that the video cassette industry has not at all hurt the movie industry. In fact, many movies are either released straight to the video market, or make more money in that market than they made in theaters. This is hardly ruinous for the motion picture industry.
The music industry was up in arms about FM radio. Cries of "people will be able to hear high fidelity music without purchasing it" were heard throughout the land. Now, they use FM radio as a market for advertising albums for sale by promoting selected songs to be played over the air!
The music industry wanted to disallow the use of audio cassette recorders for the same reasons. It was their claim that such devices would promote copying of music media to the extent that it would be impossible for them to eak out even a meager existence. They failed in their attempt to deny consumers choice. The market for music cassettes, then, carried them for a long while until the emergence of CDs. I would now point you to the CD duplicators sold by Phillips as an example of how consumers' ability to duplicate media has hurt the music industry (hint: more CDs were sold last year than the year before, even with the introduction of this new equipment).
By contrast, in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the music industry was able to, in effect, make it utterly infeasible for the general public to obtain DAT decks. The market for music on that media format never took off the way it could have, and the music industry was never allowed to benefit from it. They swindled them- selves out of a great deal of money by choking off a potential market.
History lesson over.
The motion picture industry (the chief mover being the Motion Picture Association of America, or MPAA), along with the Digital Versatile Disc (DVD) Copy Control Association (CCA), collectively referred to hereafter as the DVD Consortium, are now using the courts to limit consumer freedom in the market place. Players and movie discs are region-coded, making it impossible for consumers to, say, import a DVD from Europe and display it on the DVD player equipment they have purchased.
Imagine this scenario:
Your daughter went to France to attend college for a year on a scholarship. While she was there, she purchased a small library of films on DVD, and a player upon which to display them. Her year in France is over, and she comes home. Unfortunately, in the process of moving her belongings home, her DVD player is lost.
She goes out and buys another DVD player, pops up some popcorn, tosses one of the discs in the player, and plops down on the couch to watch a movie she brought home. There is a problem, however. The movies she purchased in France will not work in a player sold in the United States. It's not a problem of television scan format, like the problem experienced by video tape recorders, but a problem with the region codes placed on the disc and in the players. The DVD Consortium has limited her freedom to play films (even American films) she bought overseas!
A similar, but not hypothetical, scenario is faced by computer users today.
You or your readers may have heard about the Linux operating system. It is an upstart computer operating system that is lately making its presence known in some segments of the computer industry. Several other such systems exist, some commercial and some not, and they all face this dilemma.
The problem is that no DVD player software exists for computers running these operating systems. Players exist for Intel-compatible personal computers running the Microsoft Windows operating system, and for Apple Macintosh computers.
To solve this problem, a group of youngsters in Norway reverse-engineered the protection scheme (called CSS) used on the DVD discs. There are already a number of packages sprouting up to fill the need for a DVD player software in that segment of the computer market. Consumers now have a choice: they can run an alternative operating system on their computers (whose benefits are such that it is important to THEM to use that system), and they can play DVD movies that they've purchased on their computers. The software that they produced is called DeCSS, and it is at the center of a growing international controversy.
Unfortunately, the DVD Consortium is abusing the U.S. courts to stifle this action on false claims that the software was intended to aid in movie piracy. They have even gone so far as to pressure the police in Norway to arrest one of the talented youngsters who made this choice possible. The police have seized the boy's computer hardware and his mobile phone, and have raided his father's business. All at the behest of the DVD Consortium. Not only are they abusing the system we have in place to protect us in the United States, but they are abusing the freedoms of people overseas.
I would like to disseminate some facts about the DVD matter, so that you and your readers are better informed, and so that the truth about this travesty may be brought to light and wrongs may be righted.
The DVD Consortium, led by the MPAA, have cited the Digital Millenium Copyright Act of 1999 as their legal basis for conducting these abuses. In fact, that same document GUARANTEES the right of people to reverse- engineer technologies that would allow them to access information that they have a legal right to access. In other words, if I went out and bought a movie on DVD, I have every right to watch that movie - no matter how I accomplish that feat.
It is also a fact that Norway's laws are different from those in the United States. There it is illegal for a company to try to deprive you of your right to see how something you bought works. It is also legal for us in the United States to do so, though the DVD Consortium would like to limit that right.
Would you buy a car that had its hood welded shut?
It is the position of the DVD Consortium that the DeCSS program source code will enable people to make illicit copies of DVD movies, which would violate the copyrights they own. They contend that such technology is illegal, and that the spread of this technology will irreparably harm their ability to conduct business and make money. This is the same argument the motion picture industry had against video tapes, a segment of the market that makes them money hand-over-fist today.
In fact, DeCSS cannot be used in this way. There are commercially available DVD duplicators on the market that can be used to make an EXACT DUPLICATE of a DVD movie disc; a copy so precise that no DVD player on Earth would be able to tell it apart from the original disc.
If it is piracy that the DVD Consortium is alarmed about, it should be very concerned indeed about such products. Such systems have valid functions, though. This cannot be denied, as doing so would be arguing that video cassette recorders and audio cassette recorders have no valid reasons for existing. As such, the DVD consortium will not target the manufacturers of such equipment. They conveniently ignore these systems when bringing their complaints before the courts.
How many times have you made an illicit copy of a movie on video cassette?
If I had to take a guess, the average reader would say that they had done so very few times. I would also guess, correctly, that far more people have rented or purchased a movie on video tape, and have abided by the agreement to not copy and distribute the contents of that movie than those who have willfully broken the law. The fact that the motion picture industry turns record profits from the distribution of video tapes fully supports this theory. That people have abused the capabilities of the machines they possess is an unfortunate situation, and it cannot be morally put aside, but in monetary terms the costs incurred by the movie industry is infinitesimally small.
The DVD Consortium is concerned about DeCSS because it would allow people to pirate movies over the Internet. This may be a valid concern, but let us take a closer look at reality.
The average DVD movie consumes about fifteen gigabytes of data storage. That's roughly 1,500 megabytes of data space. It is only recently that such space has been available to consumers for storing data on their home systems! Consider now that most people connect to the Internet at an incredibly slow speed. This may eventually change, but the days of slow internet access are numbered long. It is highly unlikely that anyone will be at all willing to download a fifteen gigabyte movie file to their home computer over a modem. To do so would take many, many days.
In effect, even if some did abuse the technology to make pirated copies of DVD movies available to denizens of the Internet, the monetary loss to the movie industry would be negligible. The fact of the matter is that DVD is a great format: it doesn't wear out, possesses astounding picture quality and incredible audio quality, usually carries with it highlights and extras like interviews, and is in a very convenient and elegant form factor. The costs associated with making illicit copies of the movies available on the internet make the benefits of doing so seem paltry, and people are not going to waste their time doing so.
These are the facts of the case. There may be some valid concerns, but the sheer weight of history and of evidence would tend to minimalize these concerns.
What the DVD Consortium is doing, limiting the rights of people to watch movies that they have purchased, is wrong.
I would urge you and your readers to investigate this attempt to curtail your freedoms. To wit, I offer the web site of the Electronic Frontiers Foundation, at http://www.eff.org and the web site specifically for the promotion of the open DVD software, at http://www.opendvd.org.
Thank you,
Corey Brenner (address omitted)
I may be reached for comment at my home phone number, which is (phone number omitted).
> My opinions of guns is best summed up by this recent article on Salon.
Funny, that.
IIRC, the kids that shot up the school at Columbine were in violation of not less than like 25 existing gun laws. These violations would have landed them in prison for the rest of several of their lives.
The problem is not that we don't have stringent enough gun laws - it's that the gun laws that we have aren't enforced!
Why is it that, if I don't do anything illegal with my guns, I should be forced to give them up because some (group of) idiots has done something stupid with theirs?
Substitute the word "computer" for the word "firearm" in any gun law you care to read the text for, and see if you like the resultant restrictions on your right to pursue your happiness through your interaction with your favorite computer, then you'll see what the NRA folks are up in arms (so to speak) about.
+ Some people actually do like to use guns for sport. + Since we've obliterated entire classes of indigenous predators, we (humans - sportsmen) must use guns to control populations of certain animals (this is why we have hunting seasons). + Some people really like to collect old or unusual guns (one of my friends has an old KayPro computer he fired up to test its Y2K compliance - which it passed with flying colors, allowing him to merrily play a game of text-mode donkey kong or somesuch - would you deny him that?). + Guns are even useful for (gasp!) self defense! In every (not just some, but every) state in which concealed carry has passed, crime has dropped (not just NRA numbers, but real, solid, official government statistics). Criminals, it seems, are less likely to mug someone if there is a distinct possibility of that person pulling out a gun and wiping them out of existence. It's all about rationality - would you mug me if I could potentially shoot you?
Now, to wax a little philosophical - I believe in the concept of liberty. My right to swing my fist ending at the tip of your nose, and all. If I don't harm you in any way by owning a gun, why should you have any right or reason at all, in any way, shape or form, to dictate to me that I cannot own one, thus injuring me?
All this, and I didn't even go on a rant about "a well-organized militia being necessary,...". Until now. The fact is, the right to keep and bear arms is GUARANTEED by our Constitution in this country. "The tree of liberty is nourished by the blood of patriots." is a quote I'm rather fond of - a quote that expressed the sentiment at the time of its coining that we should fight for our freedoms, and remain strong in order to secure them. Well, now King George is President Bill, and the situation is the same. I can assure you that, deep down, there is that nugget of fear of armed rebellion that keeps our government from passing very, very oppressive laws. It's not because those in power are good-hearted; of that you can be sure.
My rant is done for now, but I urge you to think about the matter a little more before blindly saying, "guns are bad". The old saw goes, "guns don't kill people - people kill people." And that's the truth. Punish the criminals and leave the law-abiding to their own devices.
> We geeks need a city built from scratch with geeks in government, geeks in utilities, and geeks > in Public Planning. Since we might as well try to move to the Land of Oz, or some other pipe > dream, I think we'll just have to wait...
I've been thinking about this, actually. I want to get together a large cadre of geeks and move to South America!
Think about it: + Good-looking women + Nudity on TV + Cheap land + Low taxes + Few distractions from coding and other geeking + Government not likely to get heavy-handed with encryption/censorship policies + A large group of geeks could probably convince a small South American government to grant us land, give us hefty tax breaks, and generally improve infrastructure if we'd all congregate and make it the Internet Mecca of the World [tm] [pat. pending] + Lots and lots of raw natural beauty and wilderness to explore
- Bad beer, but some of us like to brew - The infrastructure there sucks now, unless you can fly a helicopter - Building infrastructure could be rather costly, but if you're making money hand over fist in a few years, would you mind making a personal time/money investment in growing an area full of geeks?
I wonder if such a thing could actually be done... of course, this would be in a somewhat temperate zone in South America, as I don't want to bake my noogies off near the equator, nor freeze them off near the cape.
Also, if we could, say, boost the economy of an area significantly (and I think a few hundred geeks could certainly do that - not only are we tech-savvy, but we're resourceful in lots of other ways), we might be able to affect the local populace in positive ways. For instance, if we located in Southern Brazil, and turned it into a booming tech area, we might get enough money flowing to stop all the folks in the interior from chopping down trees all the time. Idunno...
> We geeks need a city built from scratch with geeks in government, geeks in utilities, and geeks > in Public Planning. Since we might as well try to move to the Land of Oz, or some other pipe > dream, I think we'll just have to wait... I've been thinking about this, actually. I want to get together a large cadre of geeks and move to South America! Think about it: + Good-looking women + Nudity on TV + Cheap land + Low taxes + Few distractions from coding and other geeking + Government not likely to get heavy-handed with encryption/censorship policies + A large group of geeks could probably convince a small South American government to grant us land, give us hefty tax breaks, and generally improve infrastructure if we'd all congregate and make it the Internet Mecca of the World. + Lots and lots of raw natural beauty and wilderness to explore - The infrastructure there sucks now, unless you can fly a helicopter - Building infrastructure could be rather costly, but if you're making money hand over fist in a few years, would you mind making a personal time/money investment in growing an area full of geeks? I wonder if such a thing could actually be done... of course, this would be in a somewhat temperate zone in South America, as I don't want to bake my noogies off near the equator, nor freeze them off near the cape. Also, if we could, say, boost the economy of an area significantly (and I think a few hundred geeks could certainly do that - not only are we tech-savvy, but we're resourceful in lots of other ways), we might be able to affect the local populace in positive ways. For instance, if we located in Southern Brazil, and turned it into a booming tech area, we might get enough money flowing to stop all the folks in the interior from chopping down trees all the time. Idunno... Just my 2 pesos. --Corey
Current DVD media is home-writeable (with drives not available in the US, FWIU) at full capacity (18+GB?). Is there some technical reason the 140GB capacity couldn't be reached with a home-based "burner"? Or, are they simply caving *early* to the RIAA, and limiting their technology before it has a chance to make waves?
Gads... imagine if this technology took hold (and I can't see why on Earth it wouldn't!)... MS could even _further_ bloat their software.
If a FreeBSD/Debian amalgamation were to take shape, the WORST thing that could happen would be to base the distribution around the GNU libc.
This would make binary compatibility with standard FreeBSD a nightmare, and would hamper the performance of the systems that would run such a distribution. Imagine two big C libraries, two different versions of each library depending on which C library is used, etc. Memory consumption would be phenomenal, and there is really no good reason to do it, anyway. The FreeBSD libc is at least as capable as the GNU libc, is maintained by a conscientious set of developers whose goals are quality, stability, and robustness, and just, in general, rocks.
Don't further pollute a FreeBSD-based Debian by making the mistake of putting GNU libc in the mix. PLEASE.
Besides, porting a libc to a different kernel is not a terribly trivial task. Why do all that extra work when the work has already been done for you, and the results are useable by everyone and their dog?
> May the bowels of a thousand plague-infested camels burst in full projectile fury upon the > Winix-minded instigators of this moronic and miserable mis-feature!
Amen, brother, amen! Many's the time I've completely obliterated hundreds of lines worth of sardonic wit, sarcastic wordplay, and otherwise meaningless dreck by hitting the damned "escape" key (to put myself in command mode, so I can cursor around and mark/cut/paste text).
Though it would potentially be tougher for a graphical browser to spawn $EDITOR for each text area it encountered, it would be nigh on impossible for MSIE to spawn $EDITOR.
Maybe that would be a useful Mozilla/Konqueror/whatever-you-may-desire plugin. Even better would be to make vim embeddable as a GTK widget or somesuch so that, say, an IDE could really spawn my favorite editing environment!
At any rate, to quote our (rightly) oft-maligned POTUS, "Ah feel yor pain."
> The kernel that Linux-based operating systems use is, for the most part, pretty well respected > by other Unix programmers.
A topic for mild debate, but one with which I've already dealt (by ignoring utterly). I've been a Linux user since about mid-1992, and am relatively comfortable with the technology involved with that kernel.
I've found a home, though, in the much more organized and consistent BSD world. I am far and away more comfortable with a BSD userland, specifically with OpenBSD, than with any of the Linux systems I've experienced.
> Try using the specific operating system, like "Redhat taint" or "Corel taint", or the specific > political group, like "FSF taint", because that way you won't seem to be slamming the fine work > that Linux Torvalds has done.
You are, of course, correct. I meant, in no way, to disparage the work of Torvalds, et al. The "taint" to which I referred was, indeed, the festering pile of wormy dog excrement known collectively as "Linux Distributions" and its kindred soul, the viral pestilence known as the GNU Public License.
As for trouble, I make enough of that for myself, so I'm used to it.;-)
> A bit one the poisonous side, just like getting run over repeatedly by a large truck can give > minor health problems.
Come on. The effects of exposure to lead are cumulative. I used to eat peeling lead paint from my grandma's house when I was a kid (it's sweet!). While not a wise thing to do (besides the fact that I was unaware of the lead content of the paint at the time, and wouldn't have understood what that meant anyway, and the fact that the rest of society was ignorant to the effects of lead on the body), it hasn't affected me in any way that I can see. My grandma used to do the same thing when she was a kid, and she's 82 years old now, sharp as a pin, and still kicking strong!
The effects of being run over repeatedly by a truck are immensely more immediate and catastrophic.
Stop spreading FUD, because you don't understand that about which you speak.
> If the EU has the guts to tell Intel and US global surveillance industry to fuck off for > whatever reason then they are to be applauded.
On this point, we agree.
I actually believe, now, that the best friends the citizens of the U.S. have are foreign governments that won't put up with our government's bullshit anymore.
Germany subverting the Wasenaar agreement is a prime case. This possible action by the EU is another.
Where privacy is concerned, our government is becoming as bad as the Soviet Union or China; the policies of this government, from a bird's-eye view, see this country falling more and more toward a socialist society. This is troubling to me, and to most people I know.
But, onward...
> If you want to really live out your Libertarian dreams I suggest you move to Russia NOW and leave > Western Civilization to those of us who value it.
Pardon me, but are you out of your mind? Do you know what Libertarianism is, or are you simply speaking from your small end?
What is happening in Russia (I originally misconstrued your intent to mean "go and live in a backwards Communist place", but I finally caught a clue) is FAR from Libertarianism.
The criminals are running the show, rather than duly elected representatives. The people have no say in matters, and must pay extortion to the criminals in charge. In such a system, there is no freedom. Nobody in Russia can simply tell the crime syndicate to "fuck off". If they did, they would simply cease to exist. In that way, it is much like the old socialist government of the Soviet Union.
Western Civilization, or, at least, American Civilization (of old) is based more around Libertarian principles than you seem to believe. The idea that someone can conduct their life with a minimum of interference by some governing body, be it a criminal syndicate, a monarchy, or a government like the one we have today (I really don't see a difference, to tell you the honest-to-God truth!), is a Western idea, and the central idea of Libertarianism.
Indeed. The one constant in our universe is the perceived difference of experience between people. That applies even to the exact same event. I think that has less to do with the Universe and more to do with the inconsistency of humanity, but that's a philosophical debate out of the scope of this discussion.
Anyway, I'm not as interested in FreeLSD as I am in free beer.
Yes, but I don't want any unexpected weirdness caused by someone outside my inertial frame to interrupt my trip, causing me to freak out. And, I don't want the inconsistent quality of FreeLSD doing that to me without anyone's intervention (I've had bad experiences with Free's userland being bogus as hell - one of the reasons I don't run... err drop... Free anymore).
All I want to see is pretty colors, and to open my mind up to the possibilities of the Universe writ large.
Heheh... while the deleterious(sp?) effects of such a development might be grand, the tightness and consistency of OpenBSD (in my experience) compared with FreeBSD makes such a project a non-starter.
Besides, I want to know that the LSD I'm using isn't going to send me on a bad trip, or make my head swell up to the size of a pumpkin.
> A *BSD accepting contributions from something Linux-related? Don't bet on it!
Don't be such a ridiculous troll. Linux and BSD cross-pollinate all the time. Don't believe me? Look in {Free,Net,Open}BSD for a "gnu" directory. In there, you will find such things as Linux filesystem support, and the GNU(Linux) x86 FPU emulation code. It remains nicely encapsulated, so that no GPL taint enters the system at large, but to suggest that the BSD's would refuse to use anything that is vaguely "linux-ish" would be absolutely ludicrous.
The userland of the OS will be BSD. The license under which any contributions to that userland will be accepted will be BSD - no exceptions. There will be no Linux "taint" to the code, it will simply be running on a Linux kernel rather than a BSD kernel.
I see this as a boon to both camps. It provides users comfortable with Linux (the kernel) with an audited, controlled userland, suitable for use as a firewall/etc. It provides feedback and fixes to the (IMNSHO) superior OpenBSD userland because of the increased usage.
Should Theo choose to accept any patches, etc., that might come of such a project, should the decision be made to go ahead with it, then there will be no licensing problems keeping OpenBSD from cribbing that code (indeed, that is one of the major thrusts of the project - the more rapid improvement of OpenBSD).
Should he refuse such patches based on any "linuxism" rather than the quality or usefulness, then it will be obvious that his vision of OpenBSD is not compatible with our (as yet non-existent) project. Simple, neh?
If nothing else, it will prove an interesting thought and programming exercise to graft that userland onto a different kernel.
To put the shoe on the other foot, a few friends and I are thinking about grafting an OpenBSD userland onto a Linux kernel (OpenLSD?) to gain the advantages of Linux' semi-mature (as compared to OpenBSD's yet non-existent) MP capabilities, and the greater hardware driver support of the Linux kernel.
Such a thing might bring more developers to the OpenBSD userland (linux geeks trying things out) and might help it to advance faster than it otherwise might, and such fixes can be controlled, checked for decency, and integrated back into OpenBSD if Theo will have them.
One of the major things that might benefit from this approach might be OpenBSD's libc and thread-safety. Open's kernel is making some movement toward MP, and I will be supporting that movement (as soon as I can put together enough bucks for decent hardware - already got me a Sun 4/670MP to play with... heheh...), but a more rapidly evolving userland might help to steer MP/MT kernel development onto a faster track.
I knew there was a good reason to despise Canada, and now I've found it. Mountain Dew without caffeine is tantamount to sacrelige. That's like pizza without cheese, or light beer!
What a disgusting place.
I shudder in horror, and weep mightily for those of you oppressed by your government in Canada.
> But as you yourself noted, there's a grave problem here. The amount of context provided is > nothing like what you would get in a face-to-face, real-time conversation.
I have to disagree. See above for details.
To me, the ability to quote, and reply inline, are the real essence of email and other digital communication. That is why I prefer email to normal conversation, on the whole.
Not that I'm an antisocial bastard, which I am, but I can more easily discern the competence of the individual with whom I'm having discourse by their spelling, punctuation, and grammatical skills. I can instantly size up a person's intelligence and communications skills, and can see readily how serious they are about the ongoing communications.
I've turned down leads for jobs because the headhunters that contacted me misspelled simple words and dropped punctuation. If you're not serious enough to "speak" well, then you need not address me.
That sort of thing is a bit more difficult in person, because while diction and spoken grammar might be fairly correct, spelling and seriousness of intent cannot be gauged with as much accuracy.
> Is this some subtly iconoclastic commentary regarding the unexpectedly similar personal > hygiene standards between Europeans and North Americans?:-)
No, you've got it wrong. That's Europeans and Canadians. U.S. Citizens generally display better hygiene than either group.
Wow, that really turned out crappy.:-( Is there any way to preserve whitespaces, etc., in HTML? I tried the blockquote tag, but that didn't do it for me, at least in the preview...
Slashdot Mirror
That's the impression I got, too. I had some correspondence with Amazon a while back, with their customer service folks and ultimately with their legal staff, regarding this patent problem.
My one simple suggestion was this: drop the suit. Use the patent if you must to cover your ass (so someone else doesn't come and sue you for infringement on something dumb like this), but don't use it to bash a competitor.
Jeff, just drop the suit. That's all I ask. Then, I can start buying books from Amazon again (and there are a bunch I want to buy).
--Corey
For God's sake, moderate this man up! This is a real bitch of mine, too. I like to know *what* functionality was added, or *what* bug was squashed, rather than knowing what files were changed and how many lines of code this affected.
Certainly this information is available in the kernel changelogs, or on someone's site, or something. Is it really that much more work to process that instead of doing a recursive diff of one version against the last to obtain stats?
Sheesh...
--Corey
There is at least one problem that I can see with an implementation of a devfs.
/etc/fstab is now completely incorrect. Digital Unix 5 will follow a path somewhat like this. Hopefully they will find a way to remedy this situation, or my heart will bleed for their FSEs.
/etc/fstab. However, there are environments wherein this is just not feasible. I realize that this problem also exists with hard-wired /dev entries, and that it is conceptually more difficult to solve with those. What I would suggest is a "mapping", wherein devices can be arbitrarily and automatically named, in a way that will allow for an administratively simple solution to the problem I've outlined above. I am sure there are other problems that I've not yet thought of, and many answers to those problems, but I choose at this time to exercise my profound penchant for academic laziness.
Device Insertion.
With a devfs, devices are named automatically by the order in which they are discovered. Altering the discovery/probe routine, or the type of host adaptor, or any number of other things, could potentially wreak havoc when administering a large system. I have experience with this from Digital Unix (which uses a BSD-ish kernel configuration setup so that, if necessary, devices can be hard-wired to a particular place).
Imagine this: I have a large machine with a large external RAID array on, say, an HSZ80 array controller. The admin before me numbered devices on that array in a somewhat haphazard fashion, whether through incompetence or necessity-at-the-time. Now, I need to expand the array, adding disks and devices. Because I've been painted into a corner, I have to export a device address from the array (target,lun - the system already has the bus number) that lies between two existing entries. This is no problem for a running system, as the new device will likely be added at the end of the chain, becoming "disk89" or somesuch. Upon bootup, however, the rules change. What was "disk89" is now "disk33", and
There must be a way to "hardwire" devices to particular addresses. Yes, a good admin will change
That said, I applaud the inclusion of a devfs to the kernel. This is something that has been on my wishlist for a long time, and it will make some future work I will do with Linux a lot easier and more robust.
Good work. Now let's take it to the next level.
--Corey
Here is a copy of a letter to the editor that I submitted to the St. Louis Post Dispatch. If it passes muster here, I'd like some feedback, and I will put it in a "hardcopy" form and mail it to several newspapers.
8----- SNIP -----8
Dear Sir,
I have written to bring to your attention and the
attention of your readers the situation unfolding
within the DVD video disc industry. First, though,
a little history.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the movie industry
decried the entry into the market of video cassette
recorders as ruinous to their industry. They were
all too happy to let people rent video cassettes from
stores, but they absolutely did not want consumers to
be able to record their own videos. They failed in
that attempt to deny consumers choice. Fast forward to
the present, and you will find that the video cassette
industry has not at all hurt the movie industry. In
fact, many movies are either released straight to the
video market, or make more money in that market than
they made in theaters. This is hardly ruinous for the
motion picture industry.
The music industry was up in arms about FM radio.
Cries of "people will be able to hear high fidelity
music without purchasing it" were heard throughout
the land. Now, they use FM radio as a market for
advertising albums for sale by promoting selected
songs to be played over the air!
The music industry wanted to disallow the use of audio
cassette recorders for the same reasons. It was their
claim that such devices would promote copying of music
media to the extent that it would be impossible for
them to eak out even a meager existence. They failed
in their attempt to deny consumers choice. The market
for music cassettes, then, carried them for a long
while until the emergence of CDs. I would now point
you to the CD duplicators sold by Phillips as an
example of how consumers' ability to duplicate media
has hurt the music industry (hint: more CDs were
sold last year than the year before, even with the
introduction of this new equipment).
By contrast, in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the
music industry was able to, in effect, make it utterly
infeasible for the general public to obtain DAT decks.
The market for music on that media format never took
off the way it could have, and the music industry was
never allowed to benefit from it. They swindled them-
selves out of a great deal of money by choking off a
potential market.
History lesson over.
The motion picture industry (the chief mover being
the Motion Picture Association of America, or MPAA),
along with the Digital Versatile Disc (DVD) Copy
Control Association (CCA), collectively referred to
hereafter as the DVD Consortium, are now using the
courts to limit consumer freedom in the market place.
Players and movie discs are region-coded, making it
impossible for consumers to, say, import a DVD from
Europe and display it on the DVD player equipment they
have purchased.
Imagine this scenario:
Your daughter went to France to attend college for a
year on a scholarship. While she was there, she
purchased a small library of films on DVD, and a
player upon which to display them. Her year in France
is over, and she comes home. Unfortunately, in the
process of moving her belongings home, her DVD player
is lost.
She goes out and buys another DVD player, pops up some
popcorn, tosses one of the discs in the player, and
plops down on the couch to watch a movie she brought
home. There is a problem, however. The movies she
purchased in France will not work in a player sold in
the United States. It's not a problem of television
scan format, like the problem experienced by video
tape recorders, but a problem with the region codes
placed on the disc and in the players. The DVD
Consortium has limited her freedom to play films (even
American films) she bought overseas!
A similar, but not hypothetical, scenario is faced by
computer users today.
You or your readers may have heard about the Linux
operating system. It is an upstart computer operating
system that is lately making its presence known in
some segments of the computer industry. Several other
such systems exist, some commercial and some not, and
they all face this dilemma.
The problem is that no DVD player software exists for
computers running these operating systems. Players
exist for Intel-compatible personal computers running
the Microsoft Windows operating system, and for Apple
Macintosh computers.
To solve this problem, a group of youngsters in Norway
reverse-engineered the protection scheme (called CSS)
used on the DVD discs. There are already a number of
packages sprouting up to fill the need for a DVD
player software in that segment of the computer
market. Consumers now have a choice: they can run an
alternative operating system on their computers (whose
benefits are such that it is important to THEM to use
that system), and they can play DVD movies that
they've purchased on their computers. The software
that they produced is called DeCSS, and it is at the
center of a growing international controversy.
Unfortunately, the DVD Consortium is abusing the U.S.
courts to stifle this action on false claims that the
software was intended to aid in movie piracy. They
have even gone so far as to pressure the police in
Norway to arrest one of the talented youngsters who
made this choice possible. The police have seized the
boy's computer hardware and his mobile phone, and have
raided his father's business. All at the behest of
the DVD Consortium. Not only are they abusing the
system we have in place to protect us in the United
States, but they are abusing the freedoms of people
overseas.
I would like to disseminate some facts about the DVD
matter, so that you and your readers are better
informed, and so that the truth about this travesty
may be brought to light and wrongs may be righted.
The DVD Consortium, led by the MPAA, have cited the
Digital Millenium Copyright Act of 1999 as their legal
basis for conducting these abuses. In fact, that same
document GUARANTEES the right of people to reverse-
engineer technologies that would allow them to access
information that they have a legal right to access. In
other words, if I went out and bought a movie on DVD, I
have every right to watch that movie - no matter how I
accomplish that feat.
It is also a fact that Norway's laws are different
from those in the United States. There it is illegal
for a company to try to deprive you of your right to
see how something you bought works. It is also legal
for us in the United States to do so, though the DVD
Consortium would like to limit that right.
Would you buy a car that had its hood welded shut?
It is the position of the DVD Consortium that the
DeCSS program source code will enable people to make
illicit copies of DVD movies, which would violate the
copyrights they own. They contend that such technology
is illegal, and that the spread of this technology will
irreparably harm their ability to conduct business and
make money. This is the same argument the motion
picture industry had against video tapes, a segment of
the market that makes them money hand-over-fist today.
In fact, DeCSS cannot be used in this way. There are
commercially available DVD duplicators on the market
that can be used to make an EXACT DUPLICATE of a DVD
movie disc; a copy so precise that no DVD player on
Earth would be able to tell it apart from the original
disc.
If it is piracy that the DVD Consortium is alarmed
about, it should be very concerned indeed about such
products. Such systems have valid functions, though.
This cannot be denied, as doing so would be arguing
that video cassette recorders and audio cassette
recorders have no valid reasons for existing. As such,
the DVD consortium will not target the manufacturers
of such equipment. They conveniently ignore these
systems when bringing their complaints before the
courts.
How many times have you made an illicit copy of a
movie on video cassette?
If I had to take a guess, the average reader would say
that they had done so very few times. I would also
guess, correctly, that far more people have rented or
purchased a movie on video tape, and have abided by
the agreement to not copy and distribute the contents
of that movie than those who have willfully broken the
law. The fact that the motion picture industry turns
record profits from the distribution of video tapes
fully supports this theory. That people have abused
the capabilities of the machines they possess is an
unfortunate situation, and it cannot be morally put
aside, but in monetary terms the costs incurred by
the movie industry is infinitesimally small.
The DVD Consortium is concerned about DeCSS because
it would allow people to pirate movies over the
Internet. This may be a valid concern, but let us
take a closer look at reality.
The average DVD movie consumes about fifteen gigabytes
of data storage. That's roughly 1,500 megabytes of
data space. It is only recently that such space has
been available to consumers for storing data on their
home systems! Consider now that most people connect
to the Internet at an incredibly slow speed. This may
eventually change, but the days of slow internet access
are numbered long. It is highly unlikely that anyone
will be at all willing to download a fifteen gigabyte
movie file to their home computer over a modem. To do
so would take many, many days.
In effect, even if some did abuse the technology to
make pirated copies of DVD movies available to denizens
of the Internet, the monetary loss to the movie
industry would be negligible. The fact of the matter
is that DVD is a great format: it doesn't wear out,
possesses astounding picture quality and incredible
audio quality, usually carries with it highlights and
extras like interviews, and is in a very convenient
and elegant form factor. The costs associated with
making illicit copies of the movies available on the
internet make the benefits of doing so seem paltry,
and people are not going to waste their time doing so.
These are the facts of the case. There may be some
valid concerns, but the sheer weight of history and
of evidence would tend to minimalize these concerns.
What the DVD Consortium is doing, limiting the rights
of people to watch movies that they have purchased, is
wrong.
I would urge you and your readers to investigate this
attempt to curtail your freedoms. To wit, I offer the
web site of the Electronic Frontiers Foundation, at
http://www.eff.org and the web site specifically for
the promotion of the open DVD software, at
http://www.opendvd.org.
Thank you,
Corey Brenner
(address omitted)
I may be reached for comment at my home phone number, which is (phone number omitted).
> My opinions of guns is best summed up by this recent article on Salon.
...". Until now. The fact is, the right to keep and bear arms is GUARANTEED by our Constitution in this country. "The tree of liberty is nourished by the blood of patriots." is a quote I'm rather fond of - a quote that expressed the sentiment at the time of its coining that we should fight for our freedoms, and remain strong in order to secure them. Well, now King George is President Bill, and the situation is the same. I can assure you that, deep down, there is that nugget of fear of armed rebellion that keeps our government from passing very, very oppressive laws. It's not because those in power are good-hearted; of that you can be sure.
Funny, that.
IIRC, the kids that shot up the school at Columbine were in violation of not less than like 25 existing gun laws. These violations would have landed them in prison for the rest of several of their lives.
The problem is not that we don't have stringent enough gun laws - it's that the gun laws that we have aren't enforced!
Why is it that, if I don't do anything illegal with my guns, I should be forced to give them up because some (group of) idiots has done something stupid with theirs?
Substitute the word "computer" for the word "firearm" in any gun law you care to read the text for, and see if you like the resultant restrictions on your right to pursue your happiness through your interaction with your favorite computer, then you'll see what the NRA folks are up in arms (so to speak) about.
+ Some people actually do like to use guns for sport.
+ Since we've obliterated entire classes of indigenous predators, we (humans - sportsmen)
must use guns to control populations of certain animals (this is why we have hunting seasons).
+ Some people really like to collect old or unusual guns (one of my friends has an old KayPro
computer he fired up to test its Y2K compliance - which it passed with flying colors, allowing
him to merrily play a game of text-mode donkey kong or somesuch - would you deny him that?).
+ Guns are even useful for (gasp!) self defense! In every (not just some, but every) state
in which concealed carry has passed, crime has dropped (not just NRA numbers, but real, solid,
official government statistics). Criminals, it seems, are less likely to mug someone if there is
a distinct possibility of that person pulling out a gun and wiping them out of existence.
It's all about rationality - would you mug me if I could potentially shoot you?
Now, to wax a little philosophical - I believe in the concept of liberty. My right to swing my fist ending at the tip of your nose, and all. If I don't harm you in any way by owning a gun, why should you have any right or reason at all, in any way, shape or form, to dictate to me that I cannot own one, thus injuring me?
All this, and I didn't even go on a rant about "a well-organized militia being necessary,
My rant is done for now, but I urge you to think about the matter a little more before blindly saying, "guns are bad". The old saw goes, "guns don't kill people - people kill people." And that's the truth. Punish the criminals and leave the law-abiding to their own devices.
--Corey
> We geeks need a city built from scratch with geeks in government, geeks in utilities, and geeks
> in Public Planning. Since we might as well try to move to the Land of Oz, or some other pipe
> dream, I think we'll just have to wait...
I've been thinking about this, actually. I want to get together a large cadre of geeks and move to South America!
Think about it:
+ Good-looking women
+ Nudity on TV
+ Cheap land
+ Low taxes
+ Few distractions from coding and other geeking
+ Government not likely to get heavy-handed with encryption/censorship policies
+ A large group of geeks could probably convince a small South American government to grant us land, give us hefty tax breaks, and generally improve infrastructure if we'd all congregate and make it the Internet Mecca of the World [tm] [pat. pending]
+ Lots and lots of raw natural beauty and wilderness to explore
- Bad beer, but some of us like to brew
- The infrastructure there sucks now, unless you can fly a helicopter
- Building infrastructure could be rather costly, but if you're making money hand over fist in a few years, would you mind making a personal time/money investment in growing an area full of geeks?
I wonder if such a thing could actually be done... of course, this would be in a somewhat temperate zone in South America, as I don't want to bake my noogies off near the equator, nor freeze them off near the cape.
Also, if we could, say, boost the economy of an area significantly (and I think a few hundred geeks could certainly do that - not only are we tech-savvy, but we're resourceful in lots of other ways), we might be able to affect the local populace in positive ways. For instance, if we located in Southern Brazil, and turned it into a booming tech area, we might get enough money flowing to stop all the folks in the interior from chopping down trees all the time. Idunno...
Just my 2 pesos.
--Corey
> We geeks need a city built from scratch with geeks in government, geeks in utilities, and geeks > in Public Planning. Since we might as well try to move to the Land of Oz, or some other pipe > dream, I think we'll just have to wait... I've been thinking about this, actually. I want to get together a large cadre of geeks and move to South America! Think about it: + Good-looking women + Nudity on TV + Cheap land + Low taxes + Few distractions from coding and other geeking + Government not likely to get heavy-handed with encryption/censorship policies + A large group of geeks could probably convince a small South American government to grant us land, give us hefty tax breaks, and generally improve infrastructure if we'd all congregate and make it the Internet Mecca of the World. + Lots and lots of raw natural beauty and wilderness to explore - The infrastructure there sucks now, unless you can fly a helicopter - Building infrastructure could be rather costly, but if you're making money hand over fist in a few years, would you mind making a personal time/money investment in growing an area full of geeks? I wonder if such a thing could actually be done... of course, this would be in a somewhat temperate zone in South America, as I don't want to bake my noogies off near the equator, nor freeze them off near the cape. Also, if we could, say, boost the economy of an area significantly (and I think a few hundred geeks could certainly do that - not only are we tech-savvy, but we're resourceful in lots of other ways), we might be able to affect the local populace in positive ways. For instance, if we located in Southern Brazil, and turned it into a booming tech area, we might get enough money flowing to stop all the folks in the interior from chopping down trees all the time. Idunno... Just my 2 pesos. --Corey
> they'll be so busy chasing the suspicious looking, they won't have time to deal with people
> who are acting in a libertarian manner.
I am confused by your use of the term "libertarian" in this context. Could you, please, for the benefit of your viewing audience, explain your terms?
Thanks,
--Corey
Current DVD media is home-writeable (with drives not available in the US, FWIU) at full capacity (18+GB?). Is there some technical reason the 140GB capacity couldn't be reached with a home-based "burner"? Or, are they simply caving *early* to the RIAA, and limiting their technology before it has a chance to make waves?
Gads... imagine if this technology took hold (and I can't see why on Earth it wouldn't!)... MS could even _further_ bloat their software.
--Corey
My ideas about time travel.
--Corey
On this point, just let me make this comment:
If a FreeBSD/Debian amalgamation were to take shape, the WORST thing that could happen would be to base the distribution around the GNU libc.
This would make binary compatibility with standard FreeBSD a nightmare, and would hamper the performance of the systems that would run such a distribution. Imagine two big C libraries, two different versions of each library depending on which C library is used, etc. Memory consumption would be phenomenal, and there is really no good reason to do it, anyway. The FreeBSD libc is at least as capable as the GNU libc, is maintained by a conscientious set of developers whose goals are quality, stability, and robustness, and just, in general, rocks.
Don't further pollute a FreeBSD-based Debian by making the mistake of putting GNU libc in the mix. PLEASE.
Besides, porting a libc to a different kernel is not a terribly trivial task. Why do all that extra work when the work has already been done for you, and the results are useable by everyone and their dog?
--Corey
> May the bowels of a thousand plague-infested camels burst in full projectile fury upon the
> Winix-minded instigators of this moronic and miserable mis-feature!
Amen, brother, amen! Many's the time I've completely obliterated hundreds of lines worth of sardonic wit, sarcastic wordplay, and otherwise meaningless dreck by hitting the damned "escape" key (to put myself in command mode, so I can cursor around and mark/cut/paste text).
Though it would potentially be tougher for a graphical browser to spawn $EDITOR for each text area it encountered, it would be nigh on impossible for MSIE to spawn $EDITOR.
Maybe that would be a useful Mozilla/Konqueror/whatever-you-may-desire plugin. Even better would be to make vim embeddable as a GTK widget or somesuch so that, say, an IDE could really spawn my favorite editing environment!
At any rate, to quote our (rightly) oft-maligned POTUS, "Ah feel yor pain."
--Corey
> The kernel that Linux-based operating systems use is, for the most part, pretty well respected
;-)
> by other Unix programmers.
A topic for mild debate, but one with which I've already dealt (by ignoring utterly). I've been a Linux user since about mid-1992, and am relatively comfortable with the technology involved with that kernel.
I've found a home, though, in the much more organized and consistent BSD world. I am far and away more comfortable with a BSD userland, specifically with OpenBSD, than with any of the Linux systems I've experienced.
> Try using the specific operating system, like "Redhat taint" or "Corel taint", or the specific
> political group, like "FSF taint", because that way you won't seem to be slamming the fine work
> that Linux Torvalds has done.
You are, of course, correct. I meant, in no way, to disparage the work of Torvalds, et al. The "taint" to which I referred was, indeed, the festering pile of wormy dog excrement known collectively as "Linux Distributions" and its kindred soul, the viral pestilence known as the GNU Public License.
As for trouble, I make enough of that for myself, so I'm used to it.
--Corey
> A bit one the poisonous side, just like getting run over repeatedly by a large truck can give
> minor health problems.
Come on. The effects of exposure to lead are cumulative. I used to eat peeling lead paint from my grandma's house when I was a kid (it's sweet!). While not a wise thing to do (besides the fact that I was unaware of the lead content of the paint at the time, and wouldn't have understood what that meant anyway, and the fact that the rest of society was ignorant to the effects of lead on the body), it hasn't affected me in any way that I can see. My grandma used to do the same thing when she was a kid, and she's 82 years old now, sharp as a pin, and still kicking strong!
The effects of being run over repeatedly by a truck are immensely more immediate and catastrophic.
Stop spreading FUD, because you don't understand that about which you speak.
--Corey
> If the EU has the guts to tell Intel and US global surveillance industry to fuck off for
> whatever reason then they are to be applauded.
On this point, we agree.
I actually believe, now, that the best friends the citizens of the U.S. have are foreign governments that won't put up with our government's bullshit anymore.
Germany subverting the Wasenaar agreement is a prime case. This possible action by the EU is another.
Where privacy is concerned, our government is becoming as bad as the Soviet Union or China; the policies of this government, from a bird's-eye view, see this country falling more and more toward a socialist society. This is troubling to me, and to most people I know.
But, onward...
> If you want to really live out your Libertarian dreams I suggest you move to Russia NOW and leave
> Western Civilization to those of us who value it.
Pardon me, but are you out of your mind? Do you know what Libertarianism is, or are you simply speaking from your small end?
What is happening in Russia (I originally misconstrued your intent to mean "go and live in a backwards Communist place", but I finally caught a clue) is FAR from Libertarianism.
The criminals are running the show, rather than duly elected representatives. The people have no say in matters, and must pay extortion to the criminals in charge. In such a system, there is no freedom. Nobody in Russia can simply tell the crime syndicate to "fuck off". If they did, they would simply cease to exist. In that way, it is much like the old socialist government of the Soviet Union.
Western Civilization, or, at least, American Civilization (of old) is based more around Libertarian principles than you seem to believe. The idea that someone can conduct their life with a minimum of interference by some governing body, be it a criminal syndicate, a monarchy, or a government like the one we have today (I really don't see a difference, to tell you the honest-to-God truth!), is a Western idea, and the central idea of Libertarianism.
It's all about LIBERTY.
--Corey
Indeed. The one constant in our universe is the perceived difference of experience between people. That applies even to the exact same event. I think that has less to do with the Universe and more to do with the inconsistency of humanity, but that's a philosophical debate out of the scope of this discussion.
Anyway, I'm not as interested in FreeLSD as I am in free beer.
;-)
--Corey
Yes, but I don't want any unexpected weirdness caused by someone outside my inertial frame to interrupt my trip, causing me to freak out. And, I don't want the inconsistent quality of FreeLSD doing that to me without anyone's intervention (I've had bad experiences with Free's userland being bogus as hell - one of the reasons I don't run ... err drop ... Free anymore).
All I want to see is pretty colors, and to open my mind up to the possibilities of the Universe writ large.
--Corey
Heheh... while the deleterious(sp?) effects of such a development might be grand, the tightness and consistency of OpenBSD (in my experience) compared with FreeBSD makes such a project a non-starter.
Besides, I want to know that the LSD I'm using isn't going to send me on a bad trip, or make my head swell up to the size of a pumpkin.
--Corey
> A *BSD accepting contributions from something Linux-related? Don't bet on it!
Don't be such a ridiculous troll. Linux and BSD cross-pollinate all the time. Don't believe me? Look in {Free,Net,Open}BSD for a "gnu" directory. In there, you will find such things as Linux filesystem support, and the GNU(Linux) x86 FPU emulation code. It remains nicely encapsulated, so that no GPL taint enters the system at large, but to suggest that the BSD's would refuse to use anything that is vaguely "linux-ish" would be absolutely ludicrous.
The userland of the OS will be BSD. The license under which any contributions to that userland will be accepted will be BSD - no exceptions. There will be no Linux "taint" to the code, it will simply be running on a Linux kernel rather than a BSD kernel.
I see this as a boon to both camps. It provides users comfortable with Linux (the kernel) with an audited, controlled userland, suitable for use as a firewall/etc. It provides feedback and fixes to the (IMNSHO) superior OpenBSD userland because of the increased usage.
Should Theo choose to accept any patches, etc., that might come of such a project, should the decision be made to go ahead with it, then there will be no licensing problems keeping OpenBSD from cribbing that code (indeed, that is one of the major thrusts of the project - the more rapid improvement of OpenBSD).
Should he refuse such patches based on any "linuxism" rather than the quality or usefulness, then it will be obvious that his vision of OpenBSD is not compatible with our (as yet non-existent) project. Simple, neh?
If nothing else, it will prove an interesting thought and programming exercise to graft that userland onto a different kernel.
:-)
--Corey
To put the shoe on the other foot, a few friends and I are thinking about grafting an OpenBSD userland onto a Linux kernel (OpenLSD?) to gain the advantages of Linux' semi-mature (as compared to OpenBSD's yet non-existent) MP capabilities, and the greater hardware driver support of the Linux kernel.
Such a thing might bring more developers to the OpenBSD userland (linux geeks trying things out) and might help it to advance faster than it otherwise might, and such fixes can be controlled, checked for decency, and integrated back into OpenBSD if Theo will have them.
One of the major things that might benefit from this approach might be OpenBSD's libc and thread-safety. Open's kernel is making some movement toward MP, and I will be supporting that movement (as soon as I can put together enough bucks for decent hardware - already got me a Sun 4/670MP to play with... heheh...), but a more rapidly evolving userland might help to steer MP/MT kernel development onto a faster track.
Just my own inconsequential thoughts,
--Corey
My God.
I knew there was a good reason to despise Canada, and now I've found it. Mountain Dew without caffeine is tantamount to sacrelige. That's like pizza without cheese, or light beer!
What a disgusting place.
I shudder in horror, and weep mightily for those of you oppressed by your government in Canada.
--Corey
> By their postings shall ye know them.
Indeed. Rightly said, and well met, Mr. Christiansen.
--Corey
> But as you yourself noted, there's a grave problem here. The amount of context provided is
> nothing like what you would get in a face-to-face, real-time conversation.
I have to disagree. See above for details.
To me, the ability to quote, and reply inline, are the real essence of email and other digital communication. That is why I prefer email to normal conversation, on the whole.
Not that I'm an antisocial bastard, which I am, but I can more easily discern the competence of the individual with whom I'm having discourse by their spelling, punctuation, and grammatical skills. I can instantly size up a person's intelligence and communications skills, and can see readily how serious they are about the ongoing communications.
I've turned down leads for jobs because the headhunters that contacted me misspelled simple words and dropped punctuation. If you're not serious enough to "speak" well, then you need not address me.
That sort of thing is a bit more difficult in person, because while diction and spoken grammar might be fairly correct, spelling and seriousness of intent cannot be gauged with as much accuracy.
Just my $.02,
--Corey
> Is this some subtly iconoclastic commentary regarding the unexpectedly similar personal :-)
> hygiene standards between Europeans and North Americans?
No, you've got it wrong. That's Europeans and Canadians. U.S. Citizens generally display better hygiene than either group.
;-)
--Corey
Wow, that really turned out crappy. :-( Is there any way to preserve whitespaces, etc., in HTML? I tried the blockquote tag, but that didn't do it for me, at least in the preview...
--Corey