Well not really. Ok, maybe if you believe in god, than you may believe you were "engineered" but then you'd probably have a problem with muddling with "the creator's work".
If you don't believe in god, then you presumably realize that you came into existence by a process which has nothing in common with engineering. Evolution has neither a goal, nor is there an understanding of the process which is driving it.
I think both of those are required for engineering work.
Of course, sometimes we may wonder "why the fuck, am I supposed to do this?" but that only shows that most companies aren't run by engineers.;)
I dunno, maybe - but then on the other hand: is military superiority really dependend on the individual strength of soldiers, anymore? It seems that today technology is a far more important factor. A bullet typically travels faster than an athlete...
If someone makes a mature concious descision to have some form of gene therapy to make them a great runner whats the problem ?
The problem is the pressure he puts on other athletes - if they want to compete, they have to use these (potentially harmful) methods, too.
Also essentially it's unfair competition - is a genetically modified runner still in the same league as "real humans"? I mean if I really wanted to move extremely fast, running would be the least attractive choice. I could use a car, motorcycle or jet plane, depending on the distance.
If it's fair for modified humans to run, then why shouldn't someone make a mature, concious decision, to have an engine and wheels build in?
I think his point is: none if this should be the task of the user. When you buy a distribution and install it, then your box ought to be secure.
Sure, to build a distribution that actually provides that is a very difficult task, but it's really not fair to blame software errors on the user.
It's easy to say "the user ought to have installed with esoteric method x" whenever some bug is found, but that's really not good enough. The pressure should not be on the user, it should be on the distributor - be that Redhat or Microsoft or SuSE.
Most people who have DSL connections don't have sufficient knowledge to follow CERT or Bugtraq, and even if they do, they don't want to invest the time.
We can complain about this fact, as much as we want, but this will not change the situation.
It's important to make internet connected machines secure (if only because of the collateral damage through DOS etc). If you rely entirely on user-level security for this, then you have already lost.
..until of course the first big cross platform or Linux only virus comes along and trashes your computer[s], which we all know is just a matter of
time.
I believe the difference here is not that Linux is 100% secure (which it clearly isn't) but that you wouldn't fix the security hole with a virus checker. Instead the security hole would be fixed in the system itself.
Of course if someone were to implement Outlook on Linux, just in the same way it was implemented for Windows, then you'd see similar problems. (Although limited to your user account, not affecting the entire system.)
I would hope though that anyone implementing similar functionality would implement a sandbox for that program.
That might in turn be breakable, but then the reaction to it would be to fix it.
I really can see only one reason to use a virus scanner: if your system does not have a security system at all. Otherwise patching the hole makes a lot more sense, I think.
Yes, and if the company taking the code is big enough, they can push their derived implementation on the market. For example by making a nice tool to generate files which use
the (slightly modified) codec, and giving the tool give away for free. Then they make the changes a "trade secret" making sure *your* player can't play the files using their derived format.
If they want they can throw a patent in, too. However even with just a trade secret they can lock you out effectively, thanks to the DMCA.
IIRC the Kerberos protocol had similar problems at one point.
What's the problem with LGPL? The code you write remains yours, you don't have to give it to anyone, and if you really want to change the codec, then you have to publish your changes.
Seems like a damn fair deal.
This BSD approach is nice and kind, but if you have to compete with Microsoft, that approach is doomed to failure.
I'm not sure whether that would work, lowering
the price doesn't necessarily mean more people
will buy it. Many people will use the price as
an indicator of it's worth. "Who wants to play
a $5 game? It's bound to suck."
There is a certain validity to it, too - if
I spend $5 on something which I won't enjoy,
then I have just lost $5. If I spend $30 and
get a game which I enjoy for months, then I've
made a good buy.
I'm not saying the game is bad (I don't really know) just arguing that a lower price won't necesserily cause higher sales.
Sure, that's great. "Let's be realistic."
Justice and freedom? Nice ideas, but we all know
that this is not available in the real world,
so let's just roll over and let companies make
money.
So some criminals take our money. Yes
but they are big criminals, and they want to use
some of the money to educate our children.
I imagine the FBI could just pick an IP number
and configure Magic Lantern with this.
Since the IP address would be different for
each attack (at least potentially) there is
no way to block an IP beforehand.
Similarly there'd be no way for the the Antivirus
software to let Magic Lantern pass, with just
one specific IP number, they'd have to let it
pass with any IP number, and that means other
attackers could use the same hole.
I think a "submarine patent" is a patent which has somehow been worked into a standard, without telling the other participators of the standards commitee that you have the patent.
This then is only illegal if the standards body
has guidelines which require disclosure of patents.
In general however the patent holder is *not*
required to check who is using his patent, this
is only an option.
This is very much unlike a trademark, which
can be lost if it's not defended.
Every other nation is free to trade (and alot do, France, China, Canada) with Cuba
I think that may not be totally accurate, IIRC companies from other countries face sanctions too, if they trade with Cuba. I don't think that's enforced much, though.
On the other hand, one of the problems which Cuba is facing today is that a lot of it's farmland has been exhausted by monocultures of sugar cane. Their own fault, really.
Let's say you were to teach them how to use Staroffice. Admittingly that's somewhat different from the current version of MS Office. However, three years down the road when these kids enter the workplace there'll be a new version of MS Office, too.
So their knowledge would date from an old version of MS Office or StarOffice, depending what they learned. Judging from the way things have been going in the past, making the transition from either of those is probably the same amount of effort.
What educational software that they use is going to be work on it?
Admittedly I don't know what educational software schools use. On the other hand, I imagine schools might want to teach skills like wordprocesssing, spreadsheets, provide internet access, teach programming. Linux gives you all that, and updates for the foreseable future free of charge.
I'm sure there is other stuff which won't run, but if you want to learn about computers you can get such a wealth of programming languages and tools free for linux. Whereas whatever is not included in the MS package the schools would have to actually buy. Since those are poor schools, it would basically mean it's unavailable.
I imagine keeping an MS environment in a school virus free is a major challenge, too.
Nope, there would be a mass march of gun owners on Washington, loaded and ready.
It seems you've lost a lot of freedom recently - I haven't seen anyone march. Besides do you seriously believe a group of disorganized people with handguns an rifles is actually a match for the US army - one of the most modern and best trained armies in the world? Didn't work terribly well for the Taliban just now, did it?
I like his political views, I do however think he does a very bad job as an advocate.
Being impolite, rude and easily sidetracked don't make you liked by other people. If other people don't like you, then you have a hard time convincing them of your ideas, they'll be less likely to want to listen to you. RMS seems convinced that his personality should not have any bearing on his views, and he expects others to filter that out, when evaluating his ideas.
Well he's right, that's what *should* happen, but it's equally clear that it does not.
I think, just looking at the reactions of the slashdot crowd to his actions shows that he is not doing terribly well as an advocate. There seem to be quite a number of people who have nearly identical views to his, and still dislike him.
Imagine a manager who listens to a speech by RMS, hears about "freedom more important than features", "President Bush not really elected" and then gets rebuked for calling Linux "Linux".
Imagine the same manager asking his IT department to switch their webservers to Apache. Imagine it if you can, because honestly, I can't.
if you are in France, but connecting to a Yahoo! server in America, are you doing business in America, or France?
Well, among the things which happens in those cases, is that you have to pay import duties. Same thing which happens if you order from a mail-order catalog. I should think, in the same way, the French government can demand that prohibited items are not imported, and issue fines to the companies which break their import laws.
I don't think that would be an impossible law to enforce, after all it works just fine for taxes.
Of course it's up to them, to disallow businesses operating in France to sell certain items, but they shouldn't have the right to do that with sites which are not in France. However if a company makes the decision not to sell certain items, rather than having to check a variety of import laws, well that's their decision.
I wonder whether a french vibrator company would have the same problems delivering to Alabama?:)
Rapes occur quite frequently in war, and to look for morals among SS men, is a somewhat silly endeavour.
Also the SS was not an army, the German army was the Wehrmacht. The SS was made up of party members only, and did not engage in warfare [1] their main purpose was to kill and terrorise civilians.
[1] With the exception was the Waffen-SS, which Himmler setup in an attempt to gain control of the Wehrmacht.
Slashdot Mirror
If you don't believe in god, then you presumably realize that you came into existence by a process which has nothing in common with engineering. Evolution has neither a goal, nor is there an understanding of the process which is driving it. I think both of those are required for engineering work.
Of course, sometimes we may wonder "why the fuck, am I supposed to do this?" but that only shows that most companies aren't run by engineers. ;)
I dunno, maybe - but then on the other hand: is military superiority really dependend on the individual strength of soldiers, anymore? It seems that today technology is a far more important factor. A bullet typically travels faster than an athlete...
I suspect that women's volleyball would skyrocket in popularity. ;)
The problem is the pressure he puts on other athletes - if they want to compete, they have to use these (potentially harmful) methods, too.
Also essentially it's unfair competition - is a genetically modified runner still in the same league as "real humans"? I mean if I really wanted to move extremely fast, running would be the least attractive choice. I could use a car, motorcycle or jet plane, depending on the distance.
If it's fair for modified humans to run, then why shouldn't someone make a mature, concious decision, to have an engine and wheels build in?
Sure, to build a distribution that actually provides that is a very difficult task, but it's really not fair to blame software errors on the user.
It's easy to say "the user ought to have installed with esoteric method x" whenever some bug is found, but that's really not good enough. The pressure should not be on the user, it should be on the distributor - be that Redhat or Microsoft or SuSE.
Most people who have DSL connections don't have sufficient knowledge to follow CERT or Bugtraq, and even if they do, they don't want to invest the time.
We can complain about this fact, as much as we want, but this will not change the situation.
It's important to make internet connected machines secure (if only because of the collateral damage through DOS etc). If you rely entirely on user-level security for this, then you have already lost.
I believe the difference here is not that Linux is 100% secure (which it clearly isn't) but that you wouldn't fix the security hole with a virus checker. Instead the security hole would be fixed in the system itself.
Of course if someone were to implement Outlook on Linux, just in the same way it was implemented for Windows, then you'd see similar problems. (Although limited to your user account, not affecting the entire system.)
I would hope though that anyone implementing similar functionality would implement a sandbox for that program. That might in turn be breakable, but then the reaction to it would be to fix it.
I really can see only one reason to use a virus scanner: if your system does not have a security system at all. Otherwise patching the hole makes a lot more sense, I think.
IIRC the Kerberos protocol had similar problems at one point.
What's the problem with LGPL? The code you write remains yours, you don't have to give it to anyone, and if you really want to change the codec, then you have to publish your changes. Seems like a damn fair deal.
This BSD approach is nice and kind, but if you have to compete with Microsoft, that approach is doomed to failure.
There is a certain validity to it, too - if I spend $5 on something which I won't enjoy, then I have just lost $5. If I spend $30 and get a game which I enjoy for months, then I've made a good buy.
I'm not saying the game is bad (I don't really know) just arguing that a lower price won't necesserily cause higher sales.
So some criminals take our money. Yes but they are big criminals, and they want to use some of the money to educate our children.
I say we should trust them.
Similarly there'd be no way for the the Antivirus software to let Magic Lantern pass, with just one specific IP number, they'd have to let it pass with any IP number, and that means other attackers could use the same hole.
This then is only illegal if the standards body has guidelines which require disclosure of patents.
In general however the patent holder is *not* required to check who is using his patent, this is only an option.
This is very much unlike a trademark, which can be lost if it's not defended.
I suspect that the FPI would react on this simple fix with varying IP addresses - and that gets you back to a loophole for everyone...
I think that may not be totally accurate, IIRC companies from other countries face sanctions too, if they trade with Cuba. I don't think that's enforced much, though.
On the other hand, one of the problems which Cuba is facing today is that a lot of it's farmland has been exhausted by monocultures of sugar cane. Their own fault, really.
Except you will have to change the settings to protect yourself from viruses etc.
So their knowledge would date from an old version of MS Office or StarOffice, depending what they learned. Judging from the way things have been going in the past, making the transition from either of those is probably the same amount of effort.
Admittedly I don't know what educational software schools use. On the other hand, I imagine schools might want to teach skills like wordprocesssing, spreadsheets, provide internet access, teach programming. Linux gives you all that, and updates for the foreseable future free of charge.
I'm sure there is other stuff which won't run, but if you want to learn about computers you can get such a wealth of programming languages and tools free for linux. Whereas whatever is not included in the MS package the schools would have to actually buy. Since those are poor schools, it would basically mean it's unavailable.
I imagine keeping an MS environment in a school virus free is a major challenge, too.
That may well be true (I'm pretty sure it is) but if you have the army on your side your own rifles seem superfluous in comparison.
It seems you've lost a lot of freedom recently - I haven't seen anyone march. Besides do you seriously believe a group of disorganized people with handguns an rifles is actually a match for the US army - one of the most modern and best trained armies in the world? Didn't work terribly well for the Taliban just now, did it?
Please record these calls and put them on a website. :)
These companies are not trying to avoid confusion, they are trying to suppress free speech. Successfully, too.
Being impolite, rude and easily sidetracked don't make you liked by other people. If other people don't like you, then you have a hard time convincing them of your ideas, they'll be less likely to want to listen to you. RMS seems convinced that his personality should not have any bearing on his views, and he expects others to filter that out, when evaluating his ideas.
Well he's right, that's what *should* happen, but it's equally clear that it does not.
I think, just looking at the reactions of the slashdot crowd to his actions shows that he is not doing terribly well as an advocate. There seem to be quite a number of people who have nearly identical views to his, and still dislike him.
Imagine a manager who listens to a speech by RMS, hears about "freedom more important than features", "President Bush not really elected" and then gets rebuked for calling Linux "Linux".
Imagine the same manager asking his IT department to switch their webservers to Apache. Imagine it if you can, because honestly, I can't.
Well, among the things which happens in those cases, is that you have to pay import duties. Same thing which happens if you order from a mail-order catalog. I should think, in the same way, the French government can demand that prohibited items are not imported, and issue fines to the companies which break their import laws.
I don't think that would be an impossible law to enforce, after all it works just fine for taxes.
Of course it's up to them, to disallow businesses operating in France to sell certain items, but they shouldn't have the right to do that with sites which are not in France. However if a company makes the decision not to sell certain items, rather than having to check a variety of import laws, well that's their decision.
I wonder whether a french vibrator company would have the same problems delivering to Alabama? :)
Also the SS was not an army, the German army was the Wehrmacht. The SS was made up of party members only, and did not engage in warfare [1] their main purpose was to kill and terrorise civilians.
[1] With the exception was the Waffen-SS, which Himmler setup in an attempt to gain control of the Wehrmacht.
Actually, they are developing a similar product already, it's called reaKtivate. It's not as far ahead as CrossOver, however.
So the environmental impact of replacing a working car is: impact of building new car - (impact of running new car - impact of running old car).
How that works out, would depend on how long you run the car, how much you drive and a whole lot of other factors.