[...] unless you're sharing a LAN with people you don't trust (that includes remote users) or if you don't trust your upstream provider.
Not to mention all of the networks between your system and your destination. Are you positive that no one along the way has had a security breech? Sure that none of their employees are bored and unhappy with their jobs?
And of course, if your own system or the one you're connected to is broken into, a switched/filtered network doesn't help much, and a sniffer is a lot faster than a password cracker.
2) Linux has no asthetics. Asthetics goes beyond pretty GUIs into the system itself. There is only so much KDE and GNOME do for you. Once you get into the system itself, its ugly. Initscripts are ugly (except in Slackware).
This comment is quite amusing. Obviously, you don't grok Sys V init scripts, which are far more elegant than the BSD-style mess. In fact, I'm afraid you're missing the beauty of Unix altogether.
The config files are ugly. (My thinking is that the whole mess in/etc could be condensed into a dozen well planned files.)
You're kidding, right? Sure, it wouldn't hurt to make config file formats more consistant, but can you imagine how nasty those twelve files would be? They'd have to be machine-readable and manipulatable, since they'd have to be very different depending on which packages are installed. You'd have to use some sort of special utility to edit them. In short, you'd have the Windows registry -- which even Microsoft doesn't understand fully.
Sensible things like no telnet and ftp and have secure shell installed.
SSH couldn't be included before just a few days ago because of the RSA patent. FTP and Telnet servers haven't been installed on RH workstations for several releases -- and not installing the clients seems a bit harsh.
Files in the bin and etc dir should be read only and not visible to other then say the admin/wheel group.
There are a lot of files in/bin and/etc that you can't make readable only by admin/wheel. For example,/etc/passwd. That doesn't make sense. And is there really a meaningful difference between root read-only vs. root read-write?
xfont server dose not to be installed by default.
The X font server is needed for TrueType fonts under XFree86 3.3.x -- still a necessity until 4.0 is finished. Plus, if it's like RH 6.2, it's not configured to listen on the network.
ipchains and tripwire,
Packet filtering and Tripwire would be good, although doing it in a way that wouldn't utterly confuse newbies might be a trick. And tripwire isn't really useful without a database on read-only media.
and an automatic update cheker should be installed by default.
Looks like selling that is part of their business plan. Of course, you can subscribe to their free mailing list, which notifies you of updates, or use one of the many available autoupdate systems.
xv and xanim are not installed and are needed by kde/gnome.
xv isn't free software, and it's not even the best of its kind. Not sure about xanim. What exactly do you mean "needed by kde/gnome"? And more importantly, how is excluding these things a security problem?
Not a feature freeze exactly, but the article says:
Mozilla doesn't need new features, or
any particular "new" or "next generation" module (there will and should be module rewrites, to be sure; there will also be
new features, but I'm not about to call for any here).
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Re:As requested: facts about Al Gore and the inter
on
A Letter from 2020
·
· Score: 2
Check this out, for example: High-Performance Computing Act of 1991. This was 1991 -- before 99% percent of the people on Slashdot had even heard of the internet. Gore may have overstated his role, but I don't think he meant to. Like I said, get beyond the soundbyte and look at the facts.
Okay, good start. But why then make people pay *per copy*? What if, once one tree were cut down, it were able to provide an infinite amount of lumber with no extra effort?
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Re:As requested: facts about Al Gore and the inter
on
A Letter from 2020
·
· Score: 1
Yeah, exactly. That's a hell of a lot different from saying "I created the internet". It's a bit of a sloppy way to say it (it's a live interview; things don't come out completely clearly every time), but construing that to mean that Gore was claiming he invented the 'net is definitely unfair and taking it out of context.
Seriously, look at the pro-internet bills he created and got passed.
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Re:[a bit OT] Al Gore and the internet
on
A Letter from 2020
·
· Score: 2
I didn't hear that ad, but in the actual interview, he never claimed to have invented the internet.
For what it's worth, Al Gore never said that he personally created the internet. He said that he took initiative in the internet's creation, which (while a lot less of a good punchline) is actually true: he really did provide a lot of leadership in getting funding for the building of the 'net through congress.
This wasn't all stuff back in the days of Arpanet, but check out, for example, the High Performance Computing Act of 1991. And I actually remember an article about a national "network of networks" *written* by Gore in Byte magazine in the early 90s.
It's a real shame that this soundbyte has been so widely spread out of context. Check the facts.
(That said, I personally support Nader, for reasons given quite clearly in the article).
The.deb packaging scheme has flaws of its own. It's more complicated to deal with multiple sources and multiple patches in one package, and as the article says, you can't have two versions of the same package (different kernels, for example) installed alongside each other.
I dunno how much like the real world The Sims is. In reality, I avoid doing the dishes, taking out the trash, and cleaning up as long as possible. In The Sims, I make my people do it all the time, like little neat-freaks.
The high-end chips are way less likely to be overclockable, as they're already pushing the edje of what's possible. The "low-end" chips are often just as capable as the high-end, just clocked and priced lower to target a different market.
The concept of "owner" doesn't apply particularly well to ideas (even including music). How can you own an idea? Can you keep someone else from thinking thoughts that you've had?
Trading digital music or other information may be illegal, but it's not necessarily immoral -- it depends strongly on your moral views regarding imaginary property.
Laws don't make morality. They're a framework for structuring a society -- hopefully one rooted in some decent morals. There's certainly such things as bad laws.
Which rights, exactly? The intellectual property rights in question aren't some sort of natural or god-given right -- they were created by our government as a way of benefitting society. If all they're benefitting is some rich record company execs, it's time to re-examine why exactly we're giving these rights -- and perhaps to change the way they're structured.
The problem is that whether you like it or not, the music shared on Napster is someone else's property. And taking that property makes you a thief.
No it isn't and no it doesn't. It's someone's intellectual property, which is very different from physical property. For one thing, you can't strictly speaking "take" it -- you suddenly have more than one instance, with no effect on the original. This may constitute "license violation", but it's NOT theft under US law -- or morally.
It may still be wrong in some cases (as it may be in some of your software examples). But using improper terminology clouds the real issues.
It says: The questions set forth below are intended only as examples of the issues relevant to the Commission's examination. Commenters are invited to discuss any relevant issue, regardless of whether it is identified below.
UTICA is certainly a relevant issue, and it's even identified as one. Why would comments about it not be taken seriously?
It's different from that. It's like you have a music-listening room where people can come and listen to CDs. You charge $1 to get in. People can bring their own CDs with them, or they can bring positive proof that they own a given CD; in that case (and only then), you'll let them listen in on the same CD brought by someone else.
Slashdot Mirror
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But the main point is really its non-free (as in beer, even) nature.
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Not to mention all of the networks between your system and your destination. Are you positive that no one along the way has had a security breech? Sure that none of their employees are bored and unhappy with their jobs?
And of course, if your own system or the one you're connected to is broken into, a switched/filtered network doesn't help much, and a sniffer is a lot faster than a password cracker.
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This comment is quite amusing. Obviously, you don't grok Sys V init scripts, which are far more elegant than the BSD-style mess. In fact, I'm afraid you're missing the beauty of Unix altogether.
The config files are ugly. (My thinking is that the whole mess in
You're kidding, right? Sure, it wouldn't hurt to make config file formats more consistant, but can you imagine how nasty those twelve files would be? They'd have to be machine-readable and manipulatable, since they'd have to be very different depending on which packages are installed. You'd have to use some sort of special utility to edit them. In short, you'd have the Windows registry -- which even Microsoft doesn't understand fully.
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SSH couldn't be included before just a few days ago because of the RSA patent. FTP and Telnet servers haven't been installed on RH workstations for several releases -- and not installing the clients seems a bit harsh.
Files in the bin and etc dir should be read only and not visible to other then say the admin/wheel group.
There are a lot of files in
xfont server dose not to be installed by default.
The X font server is needed for TrueType fonts under XFree86 3.3.x -- still a necessity until 4.0 is finished. Plus, if it's like RH 6.2, it's not configured to listen on the network.
ipchains and tripwire,
Packet filtering and Tripwire would be good, although doing it in a way that wouldn't utterly confuse newbies might be a trick. And tripwire isn't really useful without a database on read-only media.
and an automatic update cheker should be installed by default.
Looks like selling that is part of their business plan. Of course, you can subscribe to their free mailing list, which notifies you of updates, or use one of the many available autoupdate systems.
xv and xanim are not installed and are needed by kde/gnome.
xv isn't free software, and it's not even the best of its kind. Not sure about xanim. What exactly do you mean "needed by kde/gnome"? And more importantly, how is excluding these things a security problem?
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Not a feature freeze exactly, but the article says:
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Seriously, look at the pro-internet bills he created and got passed.
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This wasn't all stuff back in the days of Arpanet, but check out, for example, the High Performance Computing Act of 1991. And I actually remember an article about a national "network of networks" *written* by Gore in Byte magazine in the early 90s.
It's a real shame that this soundbyte has been so widely spread out of context. Check the facts.
(That said, I personally support Nader, for reasons given quite clearly in the article).
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Um, cut and paste?
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The concept of "owner" doesn't apply particularly well to ideas (even including music). How can you own an idea? Can you keep someone else from thinking thoughts that you've had?
Trading digital music or other information may be illegal, but it's not necessarily immoral -- it depends strongly on your moral views regarding imaginary property.
Laws don't make morality. They're a framework for structuring a society -- hopefully one rooted in some decent morals. There's certainly such things as bad laws.
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No it isn't and no it doesn't. It's someone's intellectual property, which is very different from physical property. For one thing, you can't strictly speaking "take" it -- you suddenly have more than one instance, with no effect on the original. This may constitute "license violation", but it's NOT theft under US law -- or morally.
It may still be wrong in some cases (as it may be in some of your software examples). But using improper terminology clouds the real issues.
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UTICA is certainly a relevant issue, and it's even identified as one. Why would comments about it not be taken seriously?
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