I have to agree with your question about GNOME and SPI. Considering GNOME is part of the GNU Project and Miguel is a member of the FSF Board of directors, I was stunned to see that GNOME is considered to be an SPI project. I'd have hoped that atleast the GNOME web pages would credit the SPI if SPI is considered the umbrella for GNOME. As an FSF volunteer though, I'd much rather see the FSF as the umbrella organisation.
I just spoke to RMS and it is currently the case that the FSF has funds available to go to court to enforce the GPL, should that be necessary for an FSF-copyrighted program.
I'll speak with him more about extending this to include non-FSF-copyrighted programs in some way too. If you're interested in helping out, I'd appreciate any input.
I'd be interested to know what trouble you've been having with dump. I've been doing dumps of 2+ gig partitions for ages with dump and it works very well. Perhaps you're experiencing some other problem which is not related to the backup program you're using? If you can send me more information about where dump fails, I'd be happy to have a look at it.
After having read the information on the subject, I think that IPIX is surely losing here. If they go to court, they'd have to convince the judge that their images are computer programs, which seems a very unlikely event to me. However, even if they don't have any legal grounds for this they can still cause trouble, as we're seing now. Helmut is talking with IPIX out of court in hopes of settling this affair without going to court. If Helmut was confident enough in the laws, he'd probably have asked them to take a hike and have them try to defend their case in court.
What I'm getting at here, and this might or might not apply in this particular case, is that even if companies don't have any legal grounds for something, they can cause a lot of trouble because most of us don't have the funds or the strength to fight them in court, so it is easier to fall back and do as they ask than to stand up against them.
People have suggested having an organisation that could defend free software projects in court. However, if I've got this right (IANAL so please tell me if I'm wrong, it would make me very happy), with the current laws, only the copyright holder can acctually defend his program and it's unclear to me if some other organisations could even drive a lawsuit against the company without owning the copyright. As I understand it, thats one of the reasons why the FSF has wanted the copyright for some of its programs (like the libc, gcc, binutils, fileutils and others). If someone were to violate the GPL on these programs, it would be easy for the FSF (and for the court who doesn't have to account for a hundred different copyright holders) to prosecute the offender.
So this doesn't seem to be a situation where you can simply say, as a developer, "here; go talk to the FSF instead and don't bother me." Instead you would have to draw the lawsuit yourself and the only thing that another organisation could contribute with would probably be funds to do this. However, I don't think most people would care. Even if they did get funds for it, it would still be much too easy to fall back and live by the rules dictated by a company.
Only a few days ago I discussed this very topic with some of my friends. I've always felt that programming is a craftsmanlike task. It's not that far fetched really because programming is infact a way to express yourself. If you compare two source trees from different authors, you'll soon see the differences in their code. It might be clearly visible, like indenting the code with two spaces instead of eight, or using strict K&R style formatting. Then it might also be differences in the pure logic or some other design issues.
Someone else mentioned in this thread that it is also so that the Linux kernel gives artists the freedom to perform their art without interference from proprietary software vendors. Some also say that the GNU Project did this, but thats crediting the GNU Project a little too much. The Linux kernel was one of the first (and now, certainly one of the most successful) to give users a completely free system by combining a free kernel with the GNU tools (and other utilities).
What one could argue with in their explanation is when they say that Linux was the first to come out of collaboration between Internet users. This is quite clearly not so since such collaboration had taken place many years before Linus even began thinking about Linux. So thats an area where they really could have used some more background research. All in all, it's not that bad after all, they're just being ignorant of new technology. So the next step for us who know better would probably be to educate them; not flame them.
But bear in mind! This is most likely a result of the influence of the Linux hype wave. A friend once told me that the best way to be famous, is to be famous for being famous. Thats whats happening now, and be sure that interest in Linux will surely begin to fade before long. But even if it does, Linux will always be Linux; GNU will always be GNU. We have come here to create a completely free operating system, and by god we're gona do it!
Re:Open Source Doesn't Pay
on
VA on Upside
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· Score: 2
If you think that a six figure salary is more important than a free operating system, then perhaps the free software community simply isn't for you. Most of us here isn't in it for the money, because as you say, there's almost never any to get. We do this because we feel that we can contribute something good to the world. For some of us, hacking free software is not just a job; it's our mission in life.
It's like some people turn to politics because they think they can make a difference to the world. I turn to hacking because I think I can make a difference; it has given my life a meaning and I'd go millions of miles out of my way to be able to continue with supporting the free software community. EVEN if it means living on a minimal vage.
While there's some similarities between whats happening in the free software community and the NBA (or whatever), there's also some things that just aren't the same at all. For example, you could look at the money involved in hiring someone. In the free software community in general, people pay more attention to the work itself and other benefits instead of to their paycheck.
I know I've posted this before, but you really should check out ``Studies Find Reward Often No Motivator''. One of the conclusions of that article is that if money is seen as a reason for doing something, that task will suddenly become less interesting to do. I can't even remember the last time I did something for money; it's just too hard a struggle to become motivated to do something that doesn't interest you, even if the reward is money so you can live for another year.
Thats not saying that you can NOT pay a hacker a good salary though; just that it's not the most important thing. When it comes to money, the importance is that you get enough money so that you can pay your rent, food and buy some interesting toys to play with on your spare time (if you have any). Once that goal is reached, the next issue is about what kind of tasks that the work would involve. I tend to think that hackers are more agressive in this area because many of them often have a very well laid out idea of what they want to do and they'd rather be unemployed than be forced to go out of their way to fit into the company.
Hackers are an easy prey. If someone came to me and asked me if I'd like to for VA, I'm pretty sure I'd jump on that train. The reasons should be obvious; these companies create an athmosphere much like that of the Homebrew Computer Club and other similar organisations, such as all local Linux-based clubs. Being in such an athmosphere is in itself very motivating and interesting and I'd recommend it to anyone out there who gets the chance.
Other peoples opinions shouldn't make a difference; but they do for lots of kids out there. Can you imagine what it's like for a kid to hear "you're not worth anything, you're just a freak" continously, every day of every year?
Now, the positive side is that it doesn't take much to fix this in most cases. It's only a matter of an adult telling them that "you ARE okay, those who tell you otherwise are just envious of you." You can live for a while with that idea in your head, but not forever. So those words has to be repeated to all kids, by all parents, hopefully every day of every year. Even the "jocks" need to hear this, because if you're terrorising some other kid, chances are you've got a low self esteem yourself.
It's a danger in todays society that we tend to think about school as more and more of a kid-repository; we drop the kids of at school every day and imagine that they'll come out as bright young adults. And if it happens that the kid doesn't make it through school, we blame the system, not bothering about that it might have been our none-actions that caused the kid to flunk.
I'm not going after all parents here, but I think a lot of trouble could be avoided if parents just payed more attention to their kids. But mind you! Thats not easy, because society today tends to think we should work 10-12 hours per day if we're ever going to advance. What some people fail to see is that it's okay to be on the grass-root level. I'd rather work 6-7 hours per day and have time to be with the family than work 10-12 hours per day in hopes of a larger paycheck.
Perhaps parents too need someone to tell them, "you're okay, you don't have to work 12 hours per day."
Most people collecting computers will have a hard time giving them away, even to a museum (though going to the museum for a trip down memory lane would be nice). Though the contest said that they had to be in used by a business, so I'm guessing most collectors disqualify, unless they keep some inventory on the computer.
I implemented a phonebook on some early PDP computer a few years ago and it was lots of fun sitting in front of the DECwriter. It's surprising that that was only two or three years ago.
If you want to learn more about old computers (not just PCs, though the definition of PC is vague at best), there's plenty of resources out there;
Comprehensive Computer Catalogue - Though a bit old now, it's still a very valuable source for tracking down the age of a machine. Did you for example know that Zuse build the Z2 in Germany in april 1939? Six months before Atanasoff built their ABC in the USA.
This is almost a classical example of a double edged sword. Some people will argue that this is a bad thing because it would allow Microsoft to ignore compatibility tests. Other people will argue that this is a good thing, since it enables everyone to write Java interpreters with the freedom of not go through compatibility testing.
I'll side with the last group of people. The idea that you would need "permission" from a third party to distribute software you have written yourself is absurd. As a programmer, I see that this severely limits the ability to make good implementations. Suddenly, our laws would have turned against us, limiting our freedom.
Luckily, this doesn't seem to be the case now. Although we shouldn't loose track of what we're dealing with. This is only a tentative judgement on three issues and while it's good to focus, I think the other issues might be just as important.
There's two places I'd like to ask you to go to, which doesn't relate precisely to the topic at hand, but which talks about programming freedom.
Patent Reform Is Not Enough by RMS which talks about why it isn't enough to simply patch the current patent laws.
League for Programming Freedom which is an organization that opposes software patents and other issues that prevents programmers to work freely.
Contrary to some of the regular/. readers, I thought this was a good article. It didn't give me much at all and it never really dealt with any interesting topics. So why was it so good then?
Well, you have to look at the big picture. You have to consider how this will look to the average user. In many ways, you can deal with the reporter as an average user. Installing Linux might be no picknick, it certainly wasn't when I installed my first GNU/Linux six years ago, but we've come a long way since then, havn't we? The installation tools are practically as good as for Windows. You have to remember that this reporter would probably even need some help installing Windows to get everything right! But he mentions that there are support to get so this kills one of the most common misunderstandings about Linux.
He never deals with the general system, but he does say that there's something called Gnome that will make things easier. He also mentions the Gnome logo, which kills another misunderstanding about GNU/Linux being all text and no graphics.
In the end, he gives an impression that he's content with what he sees and that he's interested in learning more about the system and he leaves a little hook for the reader saying that he'll be back with more information.
This would feel good to read as a user I think, it takes an average guy that probably doesn't know any more about computers than you do, and it explains that he kind of liked GNU/Linux and after having read this article, you'd probably be very curious about the system.
Acctually, RMS didn't receive is doctorate from SU but from KTH (The Royal Institute of Technology). He received it in 1996 together with Karl-Johan Åström and Nils Abramson.
Check their Linux.com FAQ, it explictly states that "We want people that are hard working and don't mind digging in and working for free." So I'd say your chances on getting paid is smaller than slim to none.
Well, I had to check it out as everyone else ofcourse. There's a few things that disturb me with linux.com, but there's no reason it won't become better with time. As the authors stated on a page, they have been focusing more on the backends than the content which may, or may not have, been the way to go. Personally I like content.
On the front page they have a news service with news from themselves and LinuxToday. This doesn't really give much since I pick the news up elsewhere anyway, but once they start inserting their own news into the stream, this might improve the looks of it.
For some reasons, we're seeing lots of news cropping up at Linux sites. We have linux.com featuring linuxtoday, Red Hat featuring Slashdot and more. While having up-to-date news stories might be good, I think they'd both be better off focusing on their own news. People won't go to linux.com to read Linux Today, they will come there to read whats hot around linux.com.
Then they fail to mention the GNU Project, or even the FSF, anywhere. This is a lossage that I think should be corrected.
The Linux@Work place will most probably evolve to be terrific! It'll be a portal to all that you need to know about Linux@Work. This is a most welcomed addition.
We now go to the Linux.Com Live section, namely an IRC channel on OpenProjects. Thats all good and well, but will the questions that are answered there make their way back to Linux.Com for others to read? I don't think so, but that might be something to think about for the future. Having a bot online that records conversations and having someone go through it once a day shouldn't be a major task.
The LUG database will help you get connected with many other Linux users near you through a local LUG. Unfortunately, the only way to read the database seems to be to search it. This is a lossage because what if the LUG I'm searching for doesn't match the search query I entered? Searching is good, but there should probably also be a way to browse the LUG Database, perhaps broken down by country/state or something equivalent to that.
Their support section is also rather good since it contains links to most of the support centers that you need to know about as a new GNU/Linux user. They should find ways to interconnect this with the Linux.Com Live section, such as I suggested above with bringing answers back from IRC to the Web regularly.
Tuning Linux was mediocre at best. This is a situation where you probably should have thought about adding more content before making it public. It's a fair chance that people will watch it, see that "this is just old news", and never return. They should add more in-depth Linux tuning material here. As usual, this will probably come with time.
The one really positivt thing with Linux.Com that I found was their Weekly Columns, we've been seeing a few of those around on other sites aswell, but I find them really nice to read and most of the time also very interesting.
Their interviews could also become interesting with time. I think the interviewer needs more experience so that he'll know which questions to ask. I would recommend adding a function so that a week before an interview, you can see who they'll be interviewing and be able to add your own questions to the spool. Then they would get a better view of what the readers would like to know and can ask questions that better responds to that.
Summary: Linux.Com is a good site, but where's the content?
The only real problem I have with vim is that it doesn't save version-controled backup-files like one can make emacs do. Atleast I don't think it's possible to do so, someone is most welcome to tell me how it's done:)
You're very welcome to talk about "Linux/GNU", but try saying that out loud. Personally, I find "GNU/Linux" much simpler to say.
Re:*pulls out tape recorder, speaks into it*
on
GNU Inside?
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· Score: 1
Right, I forgot to mention also that you can check out the GNU Events page for information about most of Richards talks and in general what's happening in the near future for the GNU Project and the FSF.
Re:*pulls out tape recorder, speaks into it*
on
GNU Inside?
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· Score: 1
Why not? He's a friendly enough guy. If he's ever in your part of the world (he does travel frequently), I suggest you go listen to him.
Theres some other graphics which you could consider using if you find the default GNU to be ugly. There's a new alternative GNU and also some art by John Bokma.
There's a lot of artists, copywriters and whatnots out there that wants to help the open source community. If you wanted to, I'm sure you could raise support for a game in the community. However, you'd probably have to do around 50% yourself before enough people began improving upon it, so thats why most such projects doesn't succeed.
This is a higly controversial question and I don't think it'd do much good to bicker about the issue much longer. However, it should be noted that while the BSD license gives you more freedom, it also takes away freedom because it doesn't make sure that additions or changes to the program remains free.
Also, it should be noted that the BSD license contains an obnoxious advertising clause that forces you to include "This product includes software developed by the University of California, Berkeley and its contributors." with all advertisments for your own product.
Whether you like to have your program possibly being turned closed source is a matter of personal belief, but do NOT tolerate this obnoxious advertising clause! If you decide to use the BSD license, do the community a service and remove that clause from your license, or consider another license.
I havn't read any other comments yet, though I fear that many of them will be in the area of "never read a book! learn by doing!"
While I agree partly with this philosophy, I think there's a market even for books such as this. As the reviewer points out, the Unix philosophy has been that there are more than one way to do a specific task. It's a "danger" as a new sysadmin that you learn to do a task in one way and then never consider the alternatives. This book can show you other ways to do the same thing which you might never have thought of yourself.
It's basically about learning to think in other ways, much the same as I learned to think in other ways when I learned Perl or read the GEB.
Let me show you an example. Some time ago a machine that I use was suddenly refusing logins because of an error. The admins knew what had to be done but couldn't be bothered to drive to the machines physical location to fix it. Now, I don't know about you, but had I encountered this, I probably would have gone over to the console right away. This was also what others at the scene thought about doing until one of them realised that a certain directory on the machine was NFS mounted on another machine. In that directory was several files run by cron every now and then. The solution was obvious; replace one of the files with a new shell-script and let cron hatch the egg. Solutions such as this has been featured in books like "The Cuckoo's egg" by Cliff Stoll but I never thought about it.
Why didn't I think of that, when the solution should have been obvious all along? Because I was thinking about the lossage as an administrative problem. I never considered the option of tricking the computer into healing itself. Books and experience in a well balanced combination can make your mind more open to solutions that might not seem very obvious at first.
Slashdot Mirror
I have to agree with your question about GNOME and SPI. Considering GNOME is part of the GNU Project and Miguel is a member of the FSF Board of directors, I was stunned to see that GNOME is considered to be an SPI project. I'd have hoped that atleast the GNOME web pages would credit the SPI if SPI is considered the umbrella for GNOME.
As an FSF volunteer though, I'd much rather see the FSF as the umbrella organisation.
I just spoke to RMS and it is currently the case that the FSF has funds available to go to court to enforce the GPL, should that be necessary for an FSF-copyrighted program.
I'll speak with him more about extending this to include non-FSF-copyrighted programs in some way too. If you're interested in helping out, I'd appreciate any input.
I'd be interested to know what trouble you've been having with dump. I've been doing dumps of 2+ gig partitions for ages with dump and it works very well. Perhaps you're experiencing some other problem which is not related to the backup program you're using? If you can send me more information about where dump fails, I'd be happy to have a look at it.
What I'm getting at here, and this might or might not apply in this particular case, is that even if companies don't have any legal grounds for something, they can cause a lot of trouble because most of us don't have the funds or the strength to fight them in court, so it is easier to fall back and do as they ask than to stand up against them.
People have suggested having an organisation that could defend free software projects in court. However, if I've got this right (IANAL so please tell me if I'm wrong, it would make me very happy), with the current laws, only the copyright holder can acctually defend his program and it's unclear to me if some other organisations could even drive a lawsuit against the company without owning the copyright. As I understand it, thats one of the reasons why the FSF has wanted the copyright for some of its programs (like the libc, gcc, binutils, fileutils and others). If someone were to violate the GPL on these programs, it would be easy for the FSF (and for the court who doesn't have to account for a hundred different copyright holders) to prosecute the offender.
So this doesn't seem to be a situation where you can simply say, as a developer, "here; go talk to the FSF instead and don't bother me." Instead you would have to draw the lawsuit yourself and the only thing that another organisation could contribute with would probably be funds to do this. However, I don't think most people would care. Even if they did get funds for it, it would still be much too easy to fall back and live by the rules dictated by a company.
Someone else mentioned in this thread that it is also so that the Linux kernel gives artists the freedom to perform their art without interference from proprietary software vendors. Some also say that the GNU Project did this, but thats crediting the GNU Project a little too much. The Linux kernel was one of the first (and now, certainly one of the most successful) to give users a completely free system by combining a free kernel with the GNU tools (and other utilities).
What one could argue with in their explanation is when they say that Linux was the first to come out of collaboration between Internet users. This is quite clearly not so since such collaboration had taken place many years before Linus even began thinking about Linux. So thats an area where they really could have used some more background research. All in all, it's not that bad after all, they're just being ignorant of new technology. So the next step for us who know better would probably be to educate them; not flame them.
But bear in mind! This is most likely a result of the influence of the Linux hype wave. A friend once told me that the best way to be famous, is to be famous for being famous. Thats whats happening now, and be sure that interest in Linux will surely begin to fade before long. But even if it does, Linux will always be Linux; GNU will always be GNU. We have come here to create a completely free operating system, and by god we're gona do it!
It's like some people turn to politics because they think they can make a difference to the world. I turn to hacking because I think I can make a difference; it has given my life a meaning and I'd go millions of miles out of my way to be able to continue with supporting the free software community. EVEN if it means living on a minimal vage.
I know I've posted this before, but you really should check out ``Studies Find Reward Often No Motivator''.
One of the conclusions of that article is that if money is seen as a reason for doing something, that task will suddenly become less interesting to do. I can't even remember the last time I did something for money; it's just too hard a struggle to become motivated to do something that doesn't interest you, even if the reward is money so you can live for another year.
Thats not saying that you can NOT pay a hacker a good salary though; just that it's not the most important thing. When it comes to money, the importance is that you get enough money so that you can pay your rent, food and buy some interesting toys to play with on your spare time (if you have any). Once that goal is reached, the next issue is about what kind of tasks that the work would involve. I tend to think that hackers are more agressive in this area because many of them often have a very well laid out idea of what they want to do and they'd rather be unemployed than be forced to go out of their way to fit into the company.
Hackers are an easy prey. If someone came to me and asked me if I'd like to for VA, I'm pretty sure I'd jump on that train. The reasons should be obvious; these companies create an athmosphere much like that of the Homebrew Computer Club and other similar organisations, such as all local Linux-based clubs. Being in such an athmosphere is in itself very motivating and interesting and I'd recommend it to anyone out there who gets the chance.
Now, the positive side is that it doesn't take much to fix this in most cases. It's only a matter of an adult telling them that "you ARE okay, those who tell you otherwise are just envious of you." You can live for a while with that idea in your head, but not forever. So those words has to be repeated to all kids, by all parents, hopefully every day of every year. Even the "jocks" need to hear this, because if you're terrorising some other kid, chances are you've got a low self esteem yourself.
It's a danger in todays society that we tend to think about school as more and more of a kid-repository; we drop the kids of at school every day and imagine that they'll come out as bright young adults. And if it happens that the kid doesn't make it through school, we blame the system, not bothering about that it might have been our none-actions that caused the kid to flunk.
I'm not going after all parents here, but I think a lot of trouble could be avoided if parents just payed more attention to their kids. But mind you! Thats not easy, because society today tends to think we should work 10-12 hours per day if we're ever going to advance. What some people fail to see is that it's okay to be on the grass-root level. I'd rather work 6-7 hours per day and have time to be with the family than work 10-12 hours per day in hopes of a larger paycheck.
Perhaps parents too need someone to tell them, "you're okay, you don't have to work 12 hours per day."
I implemented a phonebook on some early PDP computer a few years ago and it was lots of fun sitting in front of the DECwriter. It's surprising that that was only two or three years ago.
If you want to learn more about old computers (not just PCs, though the definition of PC is vague at best), there's plenty of resources out there;
I'll side with the last group of people. The idea that you would need "permission" from a third party to distribute software you have written yourself is absurd. As a programmer, I see that this severely limits the ability to make good implementations. Suddenly, our laws would have turned against us, limiting our freedom.
Luckily, this doesn't seem to be the case now. Although we shouldn't loose track of what we're dealing with. This is only a tentative judgement on three issues and while it's good to focus, I think the other issues might be just as important.
There's two places I'd like to ask you to go to, which doesn't relate precisely to the topic at hand, but which talks about programming freedom.
Well, you have to look at the big picture. You have to consider how this will look to the average user. In many ways, you can deal with the reporter as an average user. Installing Linux might be no picknick, it certainly wasn't when I installed my first GNU/Linux six years ago, but we've come a long way since then, havn't we? The installation tools are practically as good as for Windows. You have to remember that this reporter would probably even need some help installing Windows to get everything right! But he mentions that there are support to get so this kills one of the most common misunderstandings about Linux.
He never deals with the general system, but he does say that there's something called Gnome that will make things easier. He also mentions the Gnome logo, which kills another misunderstanding about GNU/Linux being all text and no graphics.
In the end, he gives an impression that he's content with what he sees and that he's interested in learning more about the system and he leaves a little hook for the reader saying that he'll be back with more information.
This would feel good to read as a user I think, it takes an average guy that probably doesn't know any more about computers than you do, and it explains that he kind of liked GNU/Linux and after having read this article, you'd probably be very curious about the system.
Mission accomplished.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go download this bugger for the -third- time.
Acctually, RMS didn't receive is doctorate from SU but from KTH (The Royal Institute of Technology). He received it in 1996 together with Karl-Johan Åström and Nils Abramson.
Check their Linux.com FAQ, it explictly states that "We want people that are hard working and don't mind digging in and working for free." So I'd say your chances on getting paid is smaller than slim to none.
On the front page they have a news service with news from themselves and LinuxToday. This doesn't really give much since I pick the news up elsewhere anyway, but once they start inserting their own news into the stream, this might improve the looks of it.
For some reasons, we're seeing lots of news cropping up at Linux sites. We have linux.com featuring linuxtoday, Red Hat featuring Slashdot and more. While having up-to-date news stories might be good, I think they'd both be better off focusing on their own news. People won't go to linux.com to read Linux Today, they will come there to read whats hot around linux.com.
Then they fail to mention the GNU Project, or even the FSF, anywhere. This is a lossage that I think should be corrected.
The Linux@Work place will most probably evolve to be terrific! It'll be a portal to all that you need to know about Linux@Work. This is a most welcomed addition.
We now go to the Linux.Com Live section, namely an IRC channel on OpenProjects. Thats all good and well, but will the questions that are answered there make their way back to Linux.Com for others to read? I don't think so, but that might be something to think about for the future. Having a bot online that records conversations and having someone go through it once a day shouldn't be a major task.
The LUG database will help you get connected with many other Linux users near you through a local LUG. Unfortunately, the only way to read the database seems to be to search it. This is a lossage because what if the LUG I'm searching for doesn't match the search query I entered? Searching is good, but there should probably also be a way to browse the LUG Database, perhaps broken down by country/state or something equivalent to that.
Their support section is also rather good since it contains links to most of the support centers that you need to know about as a new GNU/Linux user. They should find ways to interconnect this with the Linux.Com Live section, such as I suggested above with bringing answers back from IRC to the Web regularly.
Tuning Linux was mediocre at best. This is a situation where you probably should have thought about adding more content before making it public. It's a fair chance that people will watch it, see that "this is just old news", and never return. They should add more in-depth Linux tuning material here. As usual, this will probably come with time.
The one really positivt thing with Linux.Com that I found was their Weekly Columns, we've been seeing a few of those around on other sites aswell, but I find them really nice to read and most of the time also very interesting.
Their interviews could also become interesting with time. I think the interviewer needs more experience so that he'll know which questions to ask. I would recommend adding a function so that a week before an interview, you can see who they'll be interviewing and be able to add your own questions to the spool. Then they would get a better view of what the readers would like to know and can ask questions that better responds to that.
Summary: Linux.Com is a good site, but where's the content?
The only real problem I have with vim is that it doesn't save version-controled backup-files like one can make emacs do. Atleast I don't think it's possible to do so, someone is most welcome to tell me how it's done :)
I think that the question everyone is asking now is; What $EDITOR does the webmasters use? ;)
I don't run X, so I don't think I can watch that art. Can I get it somewhere else? Perhaps a webpage?
You're very welcome to talk about "Linux/GNU", but try saying that out loud. Personally, I find "GNU/Linux" much simpler to say.
Right, I forgot to mention also that you can check out the GNU Events page for information about most of Richards talks and in general what's happening in the near future for the GNU Project and the FSF.
Why not? He's a friendly enough guy. If he's ever in your part of the world (he does travel frequently), I suggest you go listen to him.
Theres some other graphics which you could consider using if you find the default GNU to be ugly. There's a new alternative GNU and also some art by John Bokma.
There's a lot of artists, copywriters and whatnots out there that wants to help the open source community. If you wanted to, I'm sure you could raise support for a game in the community. However, you'd probably have to do around 50% yourself before enough people began improving upon it, so thats why most such projects doesn't succeed.
Also, it should be noted that the BSD license contains an obnoxious advertising clause that forces you to include "This product includes software developed by the University of California, Berkeley and its contributors." with all advertisments for your own product.
Whether you like to have your program possibly being turned closed source is a matter of personal belief, but do NOT tolerate this obnoxious advertising clause! If you decide to use the BSD license, do the community a service and remove that clause from your license, or consider another license.
While I agree partly with this philosophy, I think there's a market even for books such as this. As the reviewer points out, the Unix philosophy has been that there are more than one way to do a specific task. It's a "danger" as a new sysadmin that you learn to do a task in one way and then never consider the alternatives. This book can show you other ways to do the same thing which you might never have thought of yourself.
It's basically about learning to think in other ways, much the same as I learned to think in other ways when I learned Perl or read the GEB.
Let me show you an example. Some time ago a machine that I use was suddenly refusing logins because of an error. The admins knew what had to be done but couldn't be bothered to drive to the machines physical location to fix it. Now, I don't know about you, but had I encountered this, I probably would have gone over to the console right away. This was also what others at the scene thought about doing until one of them realised that a certain directory on the machine was NFS mounted on another machine. In that directory was several files run by cron every now and then. The solution was obvious; replace one of the files with a new shell-script and let cron hatch the egg. Solutions such as this has been featured in books like "The Cuckoo's egg" by Cliff Stoll but I never thought about it.
Why didn't I think of that, when the solution should have been obvious all along? Because I was thinking about the lossage as an administrative problem. I never considered the option of tricking the computer into healing itself. Books and experience in a well balanced combination can make your mind more open to solutions that might not seem very obvious at first.