For years, people have wondered where Microsoft was going. A seemingly endless supply of ill-conceived and contradictory decisions, failed business projects, and general mismanagement gave the impression that there was no clear corporate vision. With the satuaration of the OS and Office software market, no one knew where MS would turn next to sustain the drug of growth.
No one except me, that is. Some said MS would go into being a conten provider. You fools. Porn sites are content providers, MS sells no porn. Others thought that Bill and Company were looking to get into the embedded device market. WTF were they smoking? Embedded devices have no need for brand names. Who cares what your VCR runs other than stinkfingered cheeto monkeys watching tapes of Enterprise frame by frame to see the T'Pol nipple shot?
No, the future is clear. MS must take their marketing talent and money to a new market. One that is unaccustomed to the trench fighting of the Tech sector. A ripe plum. Yes, I am talking about the snack cake market.
With the considerable leverage and investment capability, MS has the chance to swoop into the prepackaged pastry industry like Hitler into Poland. Sarah Lee is ripe for a takeover with the failure of their X-99 project of dehydrated cupcakes. With such a strong base, competitor after competitor could be gobbled up. In a few short years, there would be only one source for Coffee cakes, Twinkies, HoHo, DingDongs, Chocodiles, zingers, and snowballs.
Think I'm crazy? Get off the smack. The signs are there. The Xbox is nothing more than an activity inhibitor. Less active children eat more cupcakes. The BSOD was a conditioning system. Once MS introduces the blue frosting on their signautre snack bites, the dollars will flow.
This latest project is just a cover. The only ads running on the system in 10 years will be for BillBills and BalmerDogs. I just don't understand why people don't see it. Sheep.
At 314 seconds into the video, the audio says "...Kevin Mitchell at 3rd, Gary Carter at 2nd..." when the video clearly shows the runners at 1st and 2nd.
With such an obvious error as that, I guess we have a new definition of "precise".
I'm pretty sure that the millions of descendents of Ghengis Khan would disagree. He ruled a far bigger empire than either Alexander or Napoleon. He did conquer almost all of Asia and part of Europe, including present day China, Russia, Turkey, Poland, Hungary, Iran, and Iraq.
I'm probably too late to this discusssion for my reply to be read, but futility never stopped me before.
You seem to have some amazingly bad viewpoints on the function of IS in a business. Information Services should be exactly what the name implies; managing data as a support function to internal departments. Unless you are in company which provides connectivity to customers, you are only there to assist the other departments.
1) The main job of IS is connectivity. Connectivity is the core of why we have IS. Anything else is extraneous, and I shouldn't be dealing with it.
Uh, no. The main job of IS is not connectivity, it is using technology to increase productivity within the organization as a whole. While connectivity is an import part of many of the advances in tech, it is only as important as it's contribution to IS as a whole.
If they had to make a choice, which would be important to your management: a pair of computers with perfect connectivity but no apps or a pair of computers with applications that allow the users to perform their work but involved sneakernetting files? All the network management in the world is useless without applications.
In a large corporation, you have specialized departments to handle these tasks, but as the only star in a one man show (I'm in the same position), you need to balance these roles.
2) IS involvement in other divisions isn't necessary. IS is involved with other divisions when physical products get connected to the network, but not before. Software should be evaluated by IS only when it becomes necessary for purchase and implementation, not before. Any developed piece of software (we have an in-house programmer in accounting who uses Access -- I know, I know...) should be evaluated by IS when the software is ready to install.
BS. You are throwing away one of the main benefits of having talented employees: Inhouse expertise. More than your job description, you are there to provide your experience and insight into improving the business process as a whole. The majority of productivity gains come not from having technology, but from the creative application of that tech to existing departments. How the hell do you determine the best IS architecture design if you have 0% understanding of how it is used? Maybe your perfect "connectivity" is actually disrupting work flow? How would you know? Do you even care? This habit of sitting in an ivory tower and ignoring what end users need (not want) is one of the main complaints that companies have about IT/IS. At that point, it makes sense to outsource the whole operation.
Also, how are other departments supposed to make the determination of which hardware to buy without your input? Hey look, engineering just bought a nifty foomatic 7000. Too bad it uses NFS to diskless boot and we run a Windows architecture. The sales team bought a killer CRM app. Oh by the way, the vendor insists on doing the install themselves and needs root on the box to do it. Hope you don't mind. (The contract is non-refundable btw)
Ignoring the inhouse programming talent is one of your biggest mistakes. So what if it's Access. He probably knows enough VB to make your job a lot easier if you asked. Also, why wait until he's done with development. I bet you will have wished you had asked him for a silent network install option when you are visiting each one of those 100 workstations just to click 'OK'.
3)I'm too overloaded. With 93 permanent users and 110 workstations (some are floaters), I can't do both systems work and admin work (my title is Systems Administrator, but I carry no management authority) on my own. My proposal stated the need for the creation of staff (a tech and a clerk). Management thinks because things are running, I have no issues, but I'm falling apart from all I have to do to keep things running. I need to offset the load so I can do more of the 'bigger picture' things to help guide
I'm a strong open source advocate, utilizing it on a daily basis for work and at home. I recommend Free alternatives over proprietary software whenever there is a choice. I have turned several people onto the open source path and push for it whenever it makes business sense at work. I believe in the software as well as in the process.
Given my feelings: What would you say to me to get me to believe that Microsoft would be the best place to work? What did they say to you?
Ok, so I admit I didn't read the article, but I have an excuse; I've actually seen the browser. We've had copies at work for several months through AOL's beta program. We've been comparing it IE and Firefox for the sites we develop.
First impressions:
it is a lot more reponsive than straight IE. The interface could best be described as "crisp"
The thumbnails are extremely useful. Previews for tabs are a godsend when you have 15+ tabs open
The zoom feature is amazing. Smooth scaling and fine detail.
AOL seems to have done something to fix the broken caching in IE.
Having said that, there are still some problems
Form elements aren't fully useable when zoomed. Selects are a real bitch: completely unuseable at any zoom.
It seems to share a namespace with other instances of IE. Named popups on the same site will cross post between the AOL browser and Explorer.
I find it rather funny that everyone here is slamming AOL for what appears to be well designed and implemented piece of software. The choice of the rendering component might be questionable, but for many people, Internet Exporer is a necessary evil. It's possible the interface is designed to be modular enough to swap Gecko in easily. My hope is that the Mozilla/Firefox devel teams take a good look at this browser without thier AOL prejudices getting in the way. There are a lot of good features to "steal" for Firefox 1.2.
Finally, proof that the OSS community can produce something as generic, uninspired, and forgettable as even the best corporate marketroids. I can't wait for the upcoming Apache Mission Statement contest. ("embiggens a dynamic paradigm in scalable infotecture")
Seriously, is this the best that was submitted? Not trying to flame, but the best feature of a logo is a unique image that's easily remembered. Looking at the NetBSD logo I'm not sure if I'm installing an OS or playing in a CTF clan.
Note to the judges, If the text in your logo needs to be readable to identify your product, it's not a good logo.
Uh, no. The primary problem with your reasoning is that the issue isn't whether or not CO and or CO2 is produced when burning a fuel. The issue is the total amount of Carbon present in the active worldwide Carbon cycle. Burning BioDiesel or other plant based crops does release Carbon into the atmosphere; The exact same Carbon that the crop removed from the cycle a few months ago. The main problem with Fossil Fuels is that they take Carbon which was previously removed from active circulation and reintroduces it. This upsets the balance of the cycle and has long reaching effects on all of the other natural processes (weather and biodiversity come to mind).
In terms of forestalling "another Ice Age", excessive Carbon may in fact, be hastening it. There is evidence that Ice Ages are closely linked to the cold water conveyor currents in the Atlantic. Temperature changes caused by the additional Carbon we introduce may cause the collapse of the currents and cause and Ice Age.
You have obviously missed that the whole point of my statement was in regards to the original poster's proposal to allocate a single block of address space and distribute it to everybody on earth.
So rather than enforcing a uniform heirarchy with delegations to large providers, who then subdelegate to individual ISPs, each person would be assigned their own personal address range without regard to their provider or physical location. So each backbone provider would have to advertise which portions of this shared space they served. Since those blocks are not likely to remain contiguous, potentially, each indivudual personal assignment would need to be broadcast to ensure routing. A far worse situtation than we have now
I agree that the planned structure of the address space makes sense, I was merely pointing out that the original poster's plan contained a rather large hole.
Ouch. I'm sure that somewhere out there, a Cisco engineer started to cry.
It sounds nice and all, now we just need to develop a router that can handle 6+ billion routes. When little Timmy grows up and goes to college, does his block range go with him? Great, another routing table entry. Giving addresses out with no regard to geographical proximity was one of the biggest mistakes during the allocation of IPv4. Strain on the core routers is more of a problem now than insufficient address space. The switch to IPv6 was seen as a chance to correct that mistake, not compound it exponentionally.
Well, actually yes, the data that you retrieve from a web server is covered by copyright just as much as the content of a book you purchsed. Even if you are provided with a copy of the material does not remove the rights of the owners of that material. Also, as far as I know, there doesn't need to be any copying involved for the DMCA. The whole point of the DeCSS case was that people had developed a way to access the copyrighted content of DVDs in a manner that the content owners had not approved. There was no copying involved.
As for motivation for prosecution, I can imagine several plausible scenarios where people opposed to these projects in general would welcome any chance to bring charges against the developers as a scare tactic to retard the development process.
Forgive me if I'm wrong, but isn't User-Agent spoofing a clear cut violation of section 1201 of the DMCA. The developers of Konqueror/Opera are releasing (trafficing) software which includes the capability to circumvent a technological method (user agent checking) that effectively controls access (Only allowed with certain browsers) to a copyrighted work (Web sites clearly fall into this category). Other than some fringe testing or humor uses of agent spoofing, this primary use of this feature is to defeat just these sorts of browser checks.
I'd be really interested in hearing a lawyers opinion on this issue. I'd be even more interested in hearing if the KDE/Opera developers have even considered this question.
Does anybody else find it funny that Stallman appears to be taking the exact same mindset that produced the original BSD license. The desire for recognition of the project resulted in the BSD advertising clause which the FSF had a major issue with. Now the FSF seems to be heading towards implementing their own version. Might we find the GPL 3.x containing a clause akin to...use of this software in derivitive projects is permitted provided that the term GNU/ precede the name of any resulting work...."? I guess I don't see the reasoning why the GNU desire for recognition is any more valid than the BSD effort.
Maybe a few more projects should adopt a similar stance so even Stallman sees the lunacy of talking about his GNU/X/Perl/../../HURD system?
about a completely open encoding method. yEnc was released into the public domain. Jeremy Nixon has the spec and the freedom to fix it. If he feels that yEnc is flawed in some way, there is nothing to prevent him from changing the spec to address its perceived shortcomings. Isn't that the one of the supposed benefits of open source software? Asking the developer to change his project when he has already provided you with the means to do it yourslef seems rather selfish. If Mr. Nixon feels so strongly about the problems with yEnc, he should create his own version. Only then should he engage into a debate about with approach is better. It's easier to ask people to choose between 2 working implementations, than it is between something that works and nothing.
If only there were some organization out there with a vested interest in linux. One that owes its existence to linux. Preferably one with a history of involvement in the linux community. Maybe even some corporation that runs it own websites dealing with open source issues. And while we're wishing, maybe even some entity with experience dealing with massive traffic requirements similar to the dreaded 'slashdot effect.'
Nah, nothing comes to mind. Shame.
Re:Dammit, you CAN teach old distros new tricks!
on
Linux at the Library?
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· Score: 1
"....we estimate the life expectancy of a default installation of Red Hat 6.2 server to be less then 72 hours."
And that's the problem. The distros boot up just fine. Until recently, most distributors gave no thought to security and tended to install everything enabled by default; With no firewall or access lists. Sure, an experienced user can patch and tighten an old version of linux but as it has been pointed out, those people won't be getting linux from the library. And setting a newbie up with one of these old distros is just asking for trouble.
True. There are numerous open source software projects with non-existent or poor history for handling security holes. Months, or even years, may pass before someone gets around to fixing a hole (if ever).The difference here is scale.
If Joe Developer loses interest in his custom coded, whiz bang email client, or doesn't have the time to fix it, only the current users ( downloaded 347 times from freshmeat.net ), are at risk. You see, Joe has limited resources, and in a sense, a limited responsibilty for his software.
Contrast this with Microsoft: essentially limitless corporate resources, an immense amount of developer brain trust ( well, some may argue ), and over 90 % of desktop users.
In the 3 weeks in which Microsoft has been provided with this information, Joe may have been able to put in at most, say 8 hours of time on his hole; How many man-hours of developer time do you think Microsoft had available in that period? How much was wasted at those, oh so exciting, "team meetings?"
Combine that with Microsoft's massive market share. What are the chances of any random open source project being used at YOUR bank, YOUR local police station, YOUR wastewater treatment facility? If not yours, then someone else's. WIth greater market share comes greater responsibility. The more people you have depending on your product, the more important it becomes that you dont screw things up somehow, and when you do, admit it, fix it, and move on.
This isn't a slam on Microsoft. I would hold the same standards to any entity that held even a fraction of importance ( like it or not ) that Microsoft enjoys. The major open source projects like Linux, and the major players, like Debian or Redhat, get the same criticism over security holes. Yet, they hold a much better track record in owning up to their mistakes (Which is what a patch is).
So, if 100 million users used Joe Developer's project, AND Joe had ~$36 billion in the bank, yeah, I'd be just as pissed at him too.
Watching everyone all of the time takes a lot of resources. The former East German government tried it back in the days of the Cold War. Eventually, it toppled under the strain that such a machine placed upon itself and, in turn, so did the Berlin Wall.
While this factor may have contributed to the decline of East Germany, I am sure that this fact was of great comfort to the people who lived there for the 40+ years it took to happen.
I have a real problem with the spectre of the WHOIS informaiton being restricted in any way. Limiting access to previously public data tends to make that data a business assett, suitable for profit, rather than the usable resource it once was. I have no doubt that any restrictions to the db in the name of combatting "Spammers/junk mail" will be easily overlooked when the party in question has enough money.
For those people who will scream about privacy and the need to restrict the WHOIS db, tough. Certain things and certain activities are public record, always have been and always will. Property (real estate) records are public domain and no great harm has come from it. I don't see how domain names are all that different.
I agree that my attempt to put this arguement in terms of market effect may have simplified it beyond the concepts of "justice" and "right and wrong", but for many businesses and a large number of individuals, economic effects are the primary rationale for decision making. Whether this is a libertarian perspective or not, market forces are a (supposed) basis of our society and most civil court decisions are made in that context. The "justice" you speak of may exist, but only if it is vigourously defended. i understand that a consistent stance on information property would evolve under ideal conditions, but I do not see that happening in today's political climate. One need not look further than the credit rating industry to see the disparity that exists in terms of property rights. Only recently was a consumer entitled to a copy of their own information. Even today, the formulas used to calculate the actual score are a closely held secret. I fail to see any consistency in assigning a score to someone but not providing them the basis to calculate it themselves.
I agree that consumers are (rightly) prevented from entering contracts with illegal provisions which deny them a few basic rights. However, I feel that the cost of proving that such a contract was unenforceable is growing into an insurmountable barrier to all but a few select cases. Being right is of little consequence if you can't afford cost of demonstrating that fact to a court.
I will strongly disagree that corporations are only effected by law and terrorism. You choose to ignore public perception, economic activty, and even natural elements. I would even state that those factors hold a greater influence on corporate status than either law or terrorism. As many a corporation before Microsoft has demonstrated, where law and profit collide, profit sometimes prevails. Having worked with an organization doing Superfund prosection, I can recall numerous examples where the "laws" were a secondary consideration in corporate policy. I have not personalized corporate entities, the courts did that themselves in a large number of cases. A corporation does exist to maximize profit for the shareholders. If the profit realized from circumventing or opposing a law is greater than the profit obtainable within the law, there exists a strong pressure to do so. I am not saying that this is right, only that it exists as a defacto standard in today's society. Many corporations even figure the penalties for breaking the laws as an acceptable cost of business in order to generate sufficient revenues.
This discussion on corporate behavior seems to have shifted beyond the context of the legality of portscanning, so you'll have to excuse me while I fire up my copy of nmap and start shopping for some mutual funds.:)
While you do have a valid point concerning the trust and Ip property rights, I do have to disagree. I see the two issues as completely seperate. The ability to examine the goods and services that you , as a consumer have purchased or are contemplating purchasing, is paramount in operation of the free market. Without the ability for the customer to at least have an option of making a rational choice based on the facts surrounding a good for sale, there is little incentive to improve a product.
The situation you describe is more concerned with post-sale control of goods and services by business entities more concerned with maximizing the bottom line. There is no concept of consumer rights, and is therefore in opposition to the whole basis of the free market.
In regards to the "ironclad legal defense" you mention, I highly doubt that any judicial decision regarding the legality of port scanning would in any way impact the behavior of these coporate entities, other than a short term adjustment until proper legislation could be enacted. A narrowly tailored law could be drafted that removes the individuals' right to scan in keeping with the judicial precedent, but still allows corporate spyware and scanning to continue. All it takes is the lobbiests, money and desire to do so.
Slashdot Mirror
For years, people have wondered where Microsoft was going. A seemingly endless supply of ill-conceived and contradictory decisions, failed business projects, and general mismanagement gave the impression that there was no clear corporate vision. With the satuaration of the OS and Office software market, no one knew where MS would turn next to sustain the drug of growth.
No one except me, that is. Some said MS would go into being a conten provider. You fools. Porn sites are content providers, MS sells no porn. Others thought that Bill and Company were looking to get into the embedded device market. WTF were they smoking? Embedded devices have no need for brand names. Who cares what your VCR runs other than stinkfingered cheeto monkeys watching tapes of Enterprise frame by frame to see the T'Pol nipple shot?
No, the future is clear. MS must take their marketing talent and money to a new market. One that is unaccustomed to the trench fighting of the Tech sector. A ripe plum. Yes, I am talking about the snack cake market.
With the considerable leverage and investment capability, MS has the chance to swoop into the prepackaged pastry industry like Hitler into Poland. Sarah Lee is ripe for a takeover with the failure of their X-99 project of dehydrated cupcakes. With such a strong base, competitor after competitor could be gobbled up. In a few short years, there would be only one source for Coffee cakes, Twinkies, HoHo, DingDongs, Chocodiles, zingers, and snowballs.
Think I'm crazy? Get off the smack. The signs are there. The Xbox is nothing more than an activity inhibitor. Less active children eat more cupcakes. The BSOD was a conditioning system. Once MS introduces the blue frosting on their signautre snack bites, the dollars will flow.
This latest project is just a cover. The only ads running on the system in 10 years will be for BillBills and BalmerDogs. I just don't understand why people don't see it. Sheep.
At 314 seconds into the video, the audio says "...Kevin Mitchell at 3rd, Gary Carter at 2nd..." when the video clearly shows the runners at 1st and 2nd.
With such an obvious error as that, I guess we have a new definition of "precise".
I'm pretty sure that the millions of descendents of Ghengis Khan would disagree. He ruled a far bigger empire than either Alexander or Napoleon. He did conquer almost all of Asia and part of Europe, including present day China, Russia, Turkey, Poland, Hungary, Iran, and Iraq.
Oops, Just saw the author's reply in the post above mine. I didn't realize those were the management view of things.
You seem to have some amazingly bad viewpoints on the function of IS in a business. Information Services should be exactly what the name implies; managing data as a support function to internal departments. Unless you are in company which provides connectivity to customers, you are only there to assist the other departments.
Uh, no. The main job of IS is not connectivity, it is using technology to increase productivity within the organization as a whole. While connectivity is an import part of many of the advances in tech, it is only as important as it's contribution to IS as a whole.
If they had to make a choice, which would be important to your management: a pair of computers with perfect connectivity but no apps or a pair of computers with applications that allow the users to perform their work but involved sneakernetting files? All the network management in the world is useless without applications.
In a large corporation, you have specialized departments to handle these tasks, but as the only star in a one man show (I'm in the same position), you need to balance these roles.
BS. You are throwing away one of the main benefits of having talented employees: Inhouse expertise. More than your job description, you are there to provide your experience and insight into improving the business process as a whole. The majority of productivity gains come not from having technology, but from the creative application of that tech to existing departments. How the hell do you determine the best IS architecture design if you have 0% understanding of how it is used? Maybe your perfect "connectivity" is actually disrupting work flow? How would you know? Do you even care? This habit of sitting in an ivory tower and ignoring what end users need (not want) is one of the main complaints that companies have about IT/IS. At that point, it makes sense to outsource the whole operation.
Also, how are other departments supposed to make the determination of which hardware to buy without your input? Hey look, engineering just bought a nifty foomatic 7000. Too bad it uses NFS to diskless boot and we run a Windows architecture. The sales team bought a killer CRM app. Oh by the way, the vendor insists on doing the install themselves and needs root on the box to do it. Hope you don't mind. (The contract is non-refundable btw)
Ignoring the inhouse programming talent is one of your biggest mistakes. So what if it's Access. He probably knows enough VB to make your job a lot easier if you asked. Also, why wait until he's done with development. I bet you will have wished you had asked him for a silent network install option when you are visiting each one of those 100 workstations just to click 'OK'.
And I thought the extended tours of duty in Iraq were bad....
Where does one get khaki Depends anyways?
I'm a strong open source advocate, utilizing it on a daily basis for work and at home. I recommend Free alternatives over proprietary software whenever there is a choice. I have turned several people onto the open source path and push for it whenever it makes business sense at work. I believe in the software as well as in the process.
Given my feelings: What would you say to me to get me to believe that Microsoft would be the best place to work? What did they say to you?
Hey, I know a genuine 'Panaphonics' when I see one.
First impressions:
- it is a lot more reponsive than straight IE. The interface could best be described as "crisp"
- The thumbnails are extremely useful. Previews for tabs are a godsend when you have 15+ tabs open
- The zoom feature is amazing. Smooth scaling and fine detail.
- AOL seems to have done something to fix the broken caching in IE.
Having said that, there are still some problems- Form elements aren't fully useable when zoomed. Selects are a real bitch: completely unuseable at any zoom.
- It seems to share a namespace with other instances of IE. Named popups on the same site will cross post between the AOL browser and Explorer.
I find it rather funny that everyone here is slamming AOL for what appears to be well designed and implemented piece of software. The choice of the rendering component might be questionable, but for many people, Internet Exporer is a necessary evil. It's possible the interface is designed to be modular enough to swap Gecko in easily. My hope is that the Mozilla/Firefox devel teams take a good look at this browser without thier AOL prejudices getting in the way. There are a lot of good features to "steal" for Firefox 1.2.Finally, proof that the OSS community can produce something as generic, uninspired, and forgettable as even the best corporate marketroids. I can't wait for the upcoming Apache Mission Statement contest. ("embiggens a dynamic paradigm in scalable infotecture")
Seriously, is this the best that was submitted? Not trying to flame, but the best feature of a logo is a unique image that's easily remembered. Looking at the NetBSD logo I'm not sure if I'm installing an OS or playing in a CTF clan.
Note to the judges, If the text in your logo needs to be readable to identify your product, it's not a good logo.
Uh, no. The primary problem with your reasoning is that the issue isn't whether or not CO and or CO2 is produced when burning a fuel. The issue is the total amount of Carbon present in the active worldwide Carbon cycle. Burning BioDiesel or other plant based crops does release Carbon into the atmosphere; The exact same Carbon that the crop removed from the cycle a few months ago. The main problem with Fossil Fuels is that they take Carbon which was previously removed from active circulation and reintroduces it. This upsets the balance of the cycle and has long reaching effects on all of the other natural processes (weather and biodiversity come to mind).
In terms of forestalling "another Ice Age", excessive Carbon may in fact, be hastening it. There is evidence that Ice Ages are closely linked to the cold water conveyor currents in the Atlantic. Temperature changes caused by the additional Carbon we introduce may cause the collapse of the currents and cause and Ice Age.
Other than that, it was a very nice post.
You have obviously missed that the whole point of my statement was in regards to the original poster's proposal to allocate a single block of address space and distribute it to everybody on earth.
So rather than enforcing a uniform heirarchy with delegations to large providers, who then subdelegate to individual ISPs, each person would be assigned their own personal address range without regard to their provider or physical location. So each backbone provider would have to advertise which portions of this shared space they served. Since those blocks are not likely to remain contiguous, potentially, each indivudual personal assignment would need to be broadcast to ensure routing. A far worse situtation than we have now
I agree that the planned structure of the address space makes sense, I was merely pointing out that the original poster's plan contained a rather large hole.
Ouch. I'm sure that somewhere out there, a Cisco engineer started to cry.
It sounds nice and all, now we just need to develop a router that can handle 6+ billion routes. When little Timmy grows up and goes to college, does his block range go with him? Great, another routing table entry. Giving addresses out with no regard to geographical proximity was one of the biggest mistakes during the allocation of IPv4. Strain on the core routers is more of a problem now than insufficient address space. The switch to IPv6 was seen as a chance to correct that mistake, not compound it exponentionally.
Well, actually yes, the data that you retrieve from a web server is covered by copyright just as much as the content of a book you purchsed. Even if you are provided with a copy of the material does not remove the rights of the owners of that material. Also, as far as I know, there doesn't need to be any copying involved for the DMCA. The whole point of the DeCSS case was that people had developed a way to access the copyrighted content of DVDs in a manner that the content owners had not approved. There was no copying involved.
As for motivation for prosecution, I can imagine several plausible scenarios where people opposed to these projects in general would welcome any chance to bring charges against the developers as a scare tactic to retard the development process.
Forgive me if I'm wrong, but isn't User-Agent spoofing a clear cut violation of section 1201 of the DMCA. The developers of Konqueror/Opera are releasing (trafficing) software which includes the capability to circumvent a technological method (user agent checking) that effectively controls access (Only allowed with certain browsers) to a copyrighted work (Web sites clearly fall into this category). Other than some fringe testing or humor uses of agent spoofing, this primary use of this feature is to defeat just these sorts of browser checks.
I'd be really interested in hearing a lawyers opinion on this issue. I'd be even more interested in hearing if the KDE/Opera developers have even considered this question.
Does anybody else find it funny that Stallman appears to be taking the exact same mindset that produced the original BSD license. The desire for recognition of the project resulted in the BSD advertising clause which the FSF had a major issue with. Now the FSF seems to be heading towards implementing their own version. Might we find the GPL 3.x containing a clause akin to ...use of this software in derivitive projects is permitted provided that the term GNU/ precede the name of any resulting work...."? I guess I don't see the reasoning why the GNU desire for recognition is any more valid than the BSD effort.
Maybe a few more projects should adopt a similar stance so even Stallman sees the lunacy of talking about his GNU/X/Perl/../../HURD system?
about a completely open encoding method. yEnc was released into the public domain. Jeremy Nixon has the spec and the freedom to fix it. If he feels that yEnc is flawed in some way, there is nothing to prevent him from changing the spec to address its perceived shortcomings. Isn't that the one of the supposed benefits of open source software? Asking the developer to change his project when he has already provided you with the means to do it yourslef seems rather selfish. If Mr. Nixon feels so strongly about the problems with yEnc, he should create his own version. Only then should he engage into a debate about with approach is better. It's easier to ask people to choose between 2 working implementations, than it is between something that works and nothing.
If only there were some organization out there with a vested interest in linux. One that owes its existence to linux. Preferably one with a history of involvement in the linux community. Maybe even some corporation that runs it own websites dealing with open source issues. And while we're wishing, maybe even some entity with experience dealing with massive traffic requirements similar to the dreaded 'slashdot effect.'
Nah, nothing comes to mind. Shame.
Well, according to the HoneyNet Project
"....we estimate the life expectancy of a default installation of Red Hat 6.2 server to be less then 72 hours."
And that's the problem. The distros boot up just fine. Until recently, most distributors gave no thought to security and tended to install everything enabled by default; With no firewall or access lists. Sure, an experienced user can patch and tighten an old version of linux but as it has been pointed out, those people won't be getting linux from the library. And setting a newbie up with one of these old distros is just asking for trouble.
True. There are numerous open source software projects with non-existent or poor history for handling security holes. Months, or even years, may pass before someone gets around to fixing a hole (if ever).The difference here is scale.
If Joe Developer loses interest in his custom coded, whiz bang email client, or doesn't have the time to fix it, only the current users ( downloaded 347 times from freshmeat.net ), are at risk. You see, Joe has limited resources, and in a sense, a limited responsibilty for his software.
Contrast this with Microsoft: essentially limitless corporate resources, an immense amount of developer brain trust ( well, some may argue ), and over 90 % of desktop users.
In the 3 weeks in which Microsoft has been provided with this information, Joe may have been able to put in at most, say 8 hours of time on his hole; How many man-hours of developer time do you think Microsoft had available in that period? How much was wasted at those, oh so exciting, "team meetings?"
Combine that with Microsoft's massive market share. What are the chances of any random open source project being used at YOUR bank, YOUR local police station, YOUR wastewater treatment facility? If not yours, then someone else's. WIth greater market share comes greater responsibility. The more people you have depending on your product, the more important it becomes that you dont screw things up somehow, and when you do, admit it, fix it, and move on.
This isn't a slam on Microsoft. I would hold the same standards to any entity that held even a fraction of importance ( like it or not ) that Microsoft enjoys. The major open source projects like Linux, and the major players, like Debian or Redhat, get the same criticism over security holes. Yet, they hold a much better track record in owning up to their mistakes (Which is what a patch is).
So, if 100 million users used Joe Developer's project, AND Joe had ~$36 billion in the bank, yeah, I'd be just as pissed at him too.
The All Blacks are New Zealand's national rugby team. He probably has some sort of celebrity status
Watching everyone all of the time takes a lot of resources. The former East German government tried it back in the days of the Cold War. Eventually, it toppled under the strain that such a machine placed upon itself and, in turn, so did the Berlin Wall.
While this factor may have contributed to the decline of East Germany, I am sure that this fact was of great comfort to the people who lived there for the 40+ years it took to happen.
I have a real problem with the spectre of the WHOIS informaiton being restricted in any way. Limiting access to previously public data tends to make that data a business assett, suitable for profit, rather than the usable resource it once was. I have no doubt that any restrictions to the db in the name of combatting "Spammers/junk mail" will be easily overlooked when the party in question has enough money.
For those people who will scream about privacy and the need to restrict the WHOIS db, tough. Certain things and certain activities are public record, always have been and always will. Property (real estate) records are public domain and no great harm has come from it. I don't see how domain names are all that different.
I agree that my attempt to put this arguement in terms of market effect may have simplified it beyond the concepts of "justice" and "right and wrong", but for many businesses and a large number of individuals, economic effects are the primary rationale for decision making. Whether this is a libertarian perspective or not, market forces are a (supposed) basis of our society and most civil court decisions are made in that context. The "justice" you speak of may exist, but only if it is vigourously defended. i understand that a consistent stance on information property would evolve under ideal conditions, but I do not see that happening in today's political climate. One need not look further than the credit rating industry to see the disparity that exists in terms of property rights. Only recently was a consumer entitled to a copy of their own information. Even today, the formulas used to calculate the actual score are a closely held secret. I fail to see any consistency in assigning a score to someone but not providing them the basis to calculate it themselves.
:)
I agree that consumers are (rightly) prevented from entering contracts with illegal provisions which deny them a few basic rights. However, I feel that the cost of proving that such a contract was unenforceable is growing into an insurmountable barrier to all but a few select cases. Being right is of little consequence if you can't afford cost of demonstrating that fact to a court.
I will strongly disagree that corporations are only effected by law and terrorism. You choose to ignore public perception, economic activty, and even natural elements. I would even state that those factors hold a greater influence on corporate status than either law or terrorism. As many a corporation before Microsoft has demonstrated, where law and profit collide, profit sometimes prevails. Having worked with an organization doing Superfund prosection, I can recall numerous examples where the "laws" were a secondary consideration in corporate policy. I have not personalized corporate entities, the courts did that themselves in a large number of cases. A corporation does exist to maximize profit for the shareholders. If the profit realized from circumventing or opposing a law is greater than the profit obtainable within the law, there exists a strong pressure to do so. I am not saying that this is right, only that it exists as a defacto standard in today's society. Many corporations even figure the penalties for breaking the laws as an acceptable cost of business in order to generate sufficient revenues.
This discussion on corporate behavior seems to have shifted beyond the context of the legality of portscanning, so you'll have to excuse me while I fire up my copy of nmap and start shopping for some mutual funds.
While you do have a valid point concerning the trust and Ip property rights, I do have to disagree. I see the two issues as completely seperate. The ability to examine the goods and services that you , as a consumer have purchased or are contemplating purchasing, is paramount in operation of the free market. Without the ability for the customer to at least have an option of making a rational choice based on the facts surrounding a good for sale, there is little incentive to improve a product.
The situation you describe is more concerned with post-sale control of goods and services by business entities more concerned with maximizing the bottom line. There is no concept of consumer rights, and is therefore in opposition to the whole basis of the free market.
In regards to the "ironclad legal defense" you mention, I highly doubt that any judicial decision regarding the legality of port scanning would in any way impact the behavior of these coporate entities, other than a short term adjustment until proper legislation could be enacted. A narrowly tailored law could be drafted that removes the individuals' right to scan in keeping with the judicial precedent, but still allows corporate spyware and scanning to continue. All it takes is the lobbiests, money and desire to do so.