"And in England, if you get sued for libel, the burden of proof isn't on the plaintiff, it's on YOU.....The British system is so broken...."
Why is the British system so wrong ? It means that people shouldn't publish anything potentially libellous about anyone else unless they can back up what they say. Many would argue this is not a bad thing.
In rebuttal, the three groups have filed a motion calling for "balance between the interests of patent holders and the broader public interest in innovation and competitive markets"
Sad, isn't it, when the groups opposing this are calling for a "balance" between patent holders and the greater public good.
Surely, the whole point of patents was "the broader public interest in innovation and competitive markets" ?
So how can McCreevy and co. get away with opposing "the broader public interest in innovation and competitive markets", the will of our elected EU politicians, and the wishes of by far the majority of the population who have expressed an interest in the matter ?
"...an OS that was considered grossly obsolete three years ago."
Obsolete ?
Well everyone who's still using it is using an OS which is still working fine after up to 8 years. They can still view any web site on teh Interweb just fine, email anyone in the world they want to, IM with anyone they want to, wherever they are in the world, run MS Office just fine, run their existing applications just fine........
In addition, it boots up very quickly, looks pretty close to the latest windows versions (and better than that stupid default toytown XP theme), and just does everything they've got used to doing, in the way they've got used to doing it.
I know what you mean. Reading the article, I was laughing when I realized he hadn't frobnozled the prepalpitator sauces with the correct utensils. I just knew that would come back to bite him on the ass latter. Simply follow the directions, people! Perfectly easy, my grandmother has severe alzheimer's and she managed to get the meal cooked from raw ingredients in under 15 seconds.
Seriously, cooking is not just incredibly tedious, it's also complicated unless you are doing a stock vanilla recipe with exactly and nothing but the recommended ingredients. But I was doing stuff like that with cookery before there was even a gentoo, just for fun. It is fun, for a certain type of person. But, like masturbation, it's a very personal kind of fun that doesn't contribute anything very useful to society at large. And most normal people really, really don't want to hear the gory details about how you did it and how much fun it was.
This couldn't possibly have anything to do with him writing it, could it ?
If instead, he'd written a book saying that climate change is actually happening, would it sell anywhere near as well ? Would it make him anywhere near as much money (or celebrity/attention) ?
If I wanted to make money out of a topic like this, I wouldn't do it by saying what everyone else is saying.
"What I wanted out of debian was first of all for it to be up-to-date....."
This would read better as "What I wanted out of [my (linux) operating system] was first of all for it to be up-to-date".
Of all the popular Linux distributions you could have chosen, you made posibly the worst choice of all if what you wanted first of all was something up-to-date. That is not Debian's strength.
Also, I don't think anyone wanting to run a Linux server should be "afraid of" the command line.
The parent post makes a point about the translation of Ahmadinejad's speech from, I guess, Farsi (?) to English, and then you complain about Ahmadinejad's use of the English word "myth" ?
Not that I want to defend Ahmadinejad or his views, but your post appears to show that you've missed the point the parent post was trying to make.
You might care to notice that this guy has posted 22 times so far on this one subject (see his posting history).
He also uses the sig "Boo!! I'm the DRM Boogieman!! If you don't do as RMS says, I'll take away your freedom!!".
And his posts on this subject have included the following:
This is a paranoid fantasy put into your head by RMS and others to further their own agenda.
I just don't get how you people can impugn his integrity and at the same time, not question the integrity of RMS, well known for his demagoguery.
Oh, brother. You can't ever admit when you're wrong, can you.
RMS wants to protect the user from himself. The user cannot be trusted not to purchase a product with malicious features, so the GPLv3 must remove the choice from the user. This is what I mean by Big Brother. This is what you are supporting. The individual is not to be trusted, so the collective must make decisions for him. I'm sorry, but I don't want to live in the world you have planned for us.
What it sounds like is that you want to "protect" the user from closed hardware. What's it feel like, being Big Brother?
It took me a few hours to figure it out, but the article and its posting here, as well as a large number of posters are part of a campaign to discredit Linus for having the audacity to dissent with RMS and the FSF. Look at the timing. Look at the volume. Try browsing at a lower threshold, and see how much dissent is being modded down.
The ends invariably justify the means with you types. Anyway, thank you for revealing the true colors of the FSF goon squad.
You know what's really funny? The vast majority of us on slashdot rightfully get up in arms when politicians play the terrorist card to take away our civil liberties. But we don't see it when one of our own does it to us. Instead we are ready to give up freedoms now because if we don't, then at some vague point in the future, DRM is going to lock us out of our computers.
I see the FSF priests are out in full force this morning.
Here's the thing about the GPLv3. It's taking away more freedom from both the developer and the user. It will prevent the developer from developing for whatever hardware he wants and it will limit OSS users choice. And this is being done in the name of Freedom. But whose freedom? The two most concerned parties just lost some freedom. Society's freedom? What is that exactly? Does Society's Freedom equate with The Power of the Collective?
DRM is a boogie man that RMS is using to scare you and get you juiced up.
"Seriously, in today's call center you are not allowed to hang up on customers. Never, no matter how much they abuse you, no matter how stupid they are."
"I once got yelled at for hanging up on a customer who had just issued a death threat."
Nice job you've got there, slave boy.
"Like it or not some levels of 'trusted computing' will be needed or desired in the future - especially by governments and big businesses"
"We even have a "Bill of Rights" and an Amendment banning cruel and unusual punishment. The current quibble is whether this ammendment applies to non-citizens as it does to citizens."
The law is designed to be an expression of the values of the society it applies to - determining what it does, and does not, deem acceptable. You seem to be missing the point over whether torture is, or is not, right. If something is fundementally not right, a country should not do it, regardless of whether it happens to have a law which makes that particular practise explicitly illegal.
Interesting that you choose the word "quibble" to describe the debate over whether non-USA human beings deserve the same human rights as USA human beings. Are non-USA citizens somehow less human?
This seems to split the world into two sorts of people - "us" and "them", with "them" (from your point of view) being the rest of the world. And you describe it as a "quibble" over whether "they" are equal to "us" as human beings.
If you really think this way, is it any wonder that "they" could possible dislike "us" ?
(I've used "them" and "us" from a USA perspective here. Remember that 95% of the world's population (including myself) thinks of it the other way round).
"A relational file systems is the next generation of OS design and a necessary evolution of the concept."
A flying car is the next generation of automobile design and a necessary evolution of the concept.
"Put it this way, your computer stores hundreds of thousands of files, the current paradigm of treating them as files stored in a folder tree is absolutely antiquated and ridiculous."
Put it this way, your automobile covers hundreds or thousands of miles, the current paradigm of running it on tarmac road surfaces is absolutely antiquated and ridiculous.
"I should be able to ask my operating system, "Show me all my picture files", and it simply can list ALL the image files on my computer, regardless of how or where they are stored."
I should be able to ask my car "Fly me to this destination", and it simply can fly me to ALL destinations in the world, regardless of how far away or where they are.
On a slightly different tack:
"Also, why do we even have to name files?"
OK, so you want some super-duper metadata-based storage system, but you don't even want to bother giving the file a name ? And how is a database-based file system going to store files without some sort of unique primary key (such as the full pathname) ?
".....Why do we have to give them a file extension. These are all antiquated file system concepts which are completely meaningless for a modern OS."
So something that all popular modern OS-es use is completely meaningless for a modern OS ?
"An extension was a cheap way to get the OS to launch or open a file related to a specific program, but it would be completely unnecessary if the file itself embedded its type or had an entry in a database record. The name of a file would purely be a description and only one of many ways to identify a file."
Do some reading-up on how the Unix/Linux "file" command works.
".....and if we EVER want something like what we have seen in Star Trek, where people can ask a computer real language queries, we NEED a relational file system."
The only thing I've ever wanted that I've seen in star trek is this (and it doesn't rely on a relational file system).
"I'm pretty sure that Microsoft feels that they, as the sole OS provider for the majority of the world, are in the driver's seat when it comes to hardware specs. Without much question, they know that people will end up buying whatever hardware they are directed by Microsoft to buy, because they have little choice. Much of this fact can be laid squarely at the feet of the Linux zealots who insist that there is no need for Linux to be "consumer friendly"."
Error......does not compute.
So the "Linux zealots" are actively preventing anyone who is trying to make Linux more "consumer friendly" from doing so ? How are they doing this ?
I would have thought that your "Linux zealots" are still zealously using the command-line to the exclusion of all else (not that this is at all a bad thing for those, and only those, who feel more comfortable or efficient using it), whereas those who seek a more "consumer friendly" experience are using (or helping to develop) KDE or Gnome (or whatever), and ignoring the first group.
But of course you knew this all along. You just wanted an excuse to rant about "Linux zealots", didn't you ?
"The notion that it is caused by what puny humans can do is just laughable."
Why is it that human beings (all 6+ billion of us) suddenly become puny and insignificant when, and only when, global warming is mentioned?
"One has only to look at the phenomenon of Mt. Pinatubo and Mt. St. Helens--both of which put more particulates into the atmosphere in DAYS than humans have throughout their history--to realize the earth is a self-regulating system."
A self-regulating system just like, for example, the human body. Until the day it has a major heart attack. Or until it can no longer cope with the over-eating and lack and exercise and develops diabetes. Bad analogy? OK then, what about the planet Venus? It's closer to the sun than we are, but not close enough to explain it's heat. But that's OK, right? Surely, in a few billion years time, it'll just sort itself out again?
"Global warming, if it is really happening, is a natural occurence, and will bring as much benefit as it does harm."
Hmmmm, you seem to need to cover yourself here. Just in case some people didn't actually believe you that it isn't happening, and/or it isn't our fault, well now it's not even a problem.
In which case, why did you make all your previous arguments?
"However, socialist politicians, who lust for the power to establish their order in the lives of individuals, are using it as a pretext for a power grab. This must NEVER be allowed to happen."
Oh, so it's all the fault of people you don't like? Good job the argument isn't over anything actually important.
"Without it many corporations with deep pockets could possibly collapse since their intellectual property would be carbon copied dissolving their efforts and work."
Complete rubbish. What about copyright? What about simply not publishing the source code?
"For someone in the business world to wish away the patenting system is irresponsible."
Unless they live in Europe, of course. Or various other places which aren't the USA.
"Without someone to intervene, businesses could collapse, economical and industrial warfare would be off the meter."
".....Much to much economical damage could occur from it. When an economy is damaged to an extreme the snowball effect tends to lead to poverty, crime, disease, etc."
Disease ???
Well-trolled, sir. Congratulations on your +5, and shame on the moderators.
Slashdot Mirror
"In a bay in California they found several ballot boxes....."
Because they used paper, there was something to find.
"In my state of WV they are still prosecuting people for vote buying and ballot box stuffing."
Because they used paper, and there was something which could be found.
"And in England, if you get sued for libel, the burden of proof isn't on the plaintiff, it's on YOU.....The British system is so broken...."
Why is the British system so wrong ? It means that people shouldn't publish anything potentially libellous about anyone else unless they can back up what they say. Many would argue this is not a bad thing.
".....while man may well be able to destablize environment, he is absolutely powerless to stablize it."
Surely stopping doing whatever might be "destabilizing [the] environment" might have some impact on "stabilizing" it ?
From the article:
In rebuttal, the three groups have filed a motion calling for "balance between the interests of patent holders and the broader public interest in innovation and competitive markets"
Sad, isn't it, when the groups opposing this are calling for a "balance" between patent holders and the greater public good.
Surely, the whole point of patents was "the broader public interest in innovation and competitive markets" ?
So how can McCreevy and co. get away with opposing "the broader public interest in innovation and competitive markets", the will of our elected EU politicians, and the wishes of by far the majority of the population who have expressed an interest in the matter ?
Daniel Robbins becomes a Gentoo Developer again.
Welcome back.
"...an OS that was considered grossly obsolete three years ago."
Obsolete ?
Well everyone who's still using it is using an OS which is still working fine after up to 8 years. They can still view any web site on teh Interweb just fine, email anyone in the world they want to, IM with anyone they want to, wherever they are in the world, run MS Office just fine, run their existing applications just fine........
In addition, it boots up very quickly, looks pretty close to the latest windows versions (and better than that stupid default toytown XP theme), and just does everything they've got used to doing, in the way they've got used to doing it.
Obsolete ?
No.
I know what you mean. Reading the article, I was laughing when I realized he hadn't frobnozled the prepalpitator sauces with the correct utensils. I just knew that would come back to bite him on the ass latter. Simply follow the directions, people! Perfectly easy, my grandmother has severe alzheimer's and she managed to get the meal cooked from raw ingredients in under 15 seconds.
Seriously, cooking is not just incredibly tedious, it's also complicated unless you are doing a stock vanilla recipe with exactly and nothing but the recommended ingredients. But I was doing stuff like that with cookery before there was even a gentoo, just for fun. It is fun, for a certain type of person. But, like masturbation, it's a very personal kind of fun that doesn't contribute anything very useful to society at large. And most normal people really, really don't want to hear the gory details about how you did it and how much fun it was.
".....and is bound to be a #1 bestseller."
This couldn't possibly have anything to do with him writing it, could it ?
If instead, he'd written a book saying that climate change is actually happening, would it sell anywhere near as well ? Would it make him anywhere near as much money (or celebrity/attention) ?
If I wanted to make money out of a topic like this, I wouldn't do it by saying what everyone else is saying.
has been identifed as sub-standard components delivered by a third party company called "acme".
These components had a tendency to either explode at in-opportune moments, or behave in a manner.....
You said "acme" - I think you meant "Sony".
"What I wanted out of debian was first of all for it to be up-to-date....."
This would read better as "What I wanted out of [my (linux) operating system] was first of all for it to be up-to-date".
Of all the popular Linux distributions you could have chosen, you made posibly the worst choice of all if what you wanted first of all was something up-to-date. That is not Debian's strength.
Also, I don't think anyone wanting to run a Linux server should be "afraid of" the command line.
"Even bitter enemies mourn the loss of their rivals."
Not in business where it's all about making more money.
"I hope that one way or another that guy is able to find happiness."
Perhaps he has.
Perhaps it doesn't involve large amounts of money and the winning of prizes.
I guess that's what I get for trying to tell a joke on a US Web Show without a laughter track in the background.
Or, following the principles of Heisenburger's Uncertain Cat, we can determine if it really is a live quantum computer, but we can't know where it is.
The parent post makes a point about the translation of Ahmadinejad's speech from, I guess, Farsi (?) to English, and then you complain about Ahmadinejad's use of the English word "myth" ?
Not that I want to defend Ahmadinejad or his views, but your post appears to show that you've missed the point the parent post was trying to make.
"That is miles more than ATI have provided for Linux."
ATI may not be brilliant, but at least they're putting some sort of effort behind their Linux drivers now.
They actually support XOrg 7.1 now, whereas nVidia don't yet (officially).
You might care to notice that this guy has posted 22 times so far on this one subject (see his posting history).
He also uses the sig "Boo!! I'm the DRM Boogieman!! If you don't do as RMS says, I'll take away your freedom!!".
And his posts on this subject have included the following:
This is a paranoid fantasy put into your head by RMS and others to further their own agenda.
I just don't get how you people can impugn his integrity and at the same time, not question the integrity of RMS, well known for his demagoguery.
Oh, brother. You can't ever admit when you're wrong, can you.
RMS wants to protect the user from himself. The user cannot be trusted not to purchase a product with malicious features, so the GPLv3 must remove the choice from the user. This is what I mean by Big Brother. This is what you are supporting. The individual is not to be trusted, so the collective must make decisions for him. I'm sorry, but I don't want to live in the world you have planned for us.
What it sounds like is that you want to "protect" the user from closed hardware. What's it feel like, being Big Brother?
It took me a few hours to figure it out, but the article and its posting here, as well as a large number of posters are part of a campaign to discredit Linus for having the audacity to dissent with RMS and the FSF. Look at the timing. Look at the volume. Try browsing at a lower threshold, and see how much dissent is being modded down.
The ends invariably justify the means with you types. Anyway, thank you for revealing the true colors of the FSF goon squad.
You know what's really funny? The vast majority of us on slashdot rightfully get up in arms when politicians play the terrorist card to take away our civil liberties. But we don't see it when one of our own does it to us. Instead we are ready to give up freedoms now because if we don't, then at some vague point in the future, DRM is going to lock us out of our computers.
I see the FSF priests are out in full force this morning.
Here's the thing about the GPLv3. It's taking away more freedom from both the developer and the user. It will prevent the developer from developing for whatever hardware he wants and it will limit OSS users choice. And this is being done in the name of Freedom. But whose freedom? The two most concerned parties just lost some freedom. Society's freedom? What is that exactly? Does Society's Freedom equate with The Power of the Collective?
DRM is a boogie man that RMS is using to scare you and get you juiced up.
"Seriously, in today's call center you are not allowed to hang up on customers. Never, no matter how much they abuse you, no matter how stupid they are."
"I once got yelled at for hanging up on a customer who had just issued a death threat."
Nice job you've got there, slave boy.
"Like it or not some levels of 'trusted computing' will be needed or desired in the future - especially by governments and big businesses"
Oooooooh yes, must do master's bidding.....
"Well, they keep thinking that 100 developpers can do the same job as a handful of good developpers."
Yes, companies are falling over themselves to pay 100 salaries instead of a small handful of slightly larger salaries.
"The US is absolutely civilized."
"We even have a "Bill of Rights" and an Amendment banning cruel and unusual punishment. The current quibble is whether this ammendment applies to non-citizens as it does to citizens."
The law is designed to be an expression of the values of the society it applies to - determining what it does, and does not, deem acceptable. You seem to be missing the point over whether torture is, or is not, right. If something is fundementally not right, a country should not do it, regardless of whether it happens to have a law which makes that particular practise explicitly illegal.
Interesting that you choose the word "quibble" to describe the debate over whether non-USA human beings deserve the same human rights as USA human beings. Are non-USA citizens somehow less human?
This seems to split the world into two sorts of people - "us" and "them", with "them" (from your point of view) being the rest of the world. And you describe it as a "quibble" over whether "they" are equal to "us" as human beings.
If you really think this way, is it any wonder that "they" could possible dislike "us" ?
(I've used "them" and "us" from a USA perspective here. Remember that 95% of the world's population (including myself) thinks of it the other way round).
"A relational file systems is the next generation of OS design and a necessary evolution of the concept."
:)
A flying car is the next generation of automobile design and a necessary evolution of the concept.
"Put it this way, your computer stores hundreds of thousands of files, the current paradigm of treating them as files stored in a folder tree is absolutely antiquated and ridiculous."
Put it this way, your automobile covers hundreds or thousands of miles, the current paradigm of running it on tarmac road surfaces is absolutely antiquated and ridiculous.
"I should be able to ask my operating system, "Show me all my picture files", and it simply can list ALL the image files on my computer, regardless of how or where they are stored."
I should be able to ask my car "Fly me to this destination", and it simply can fly me to ALL destinations in the world, regardless of how far away or where they are.
On a slightly different tack:
"Also, why do we even have to name files?"
OK, so you want some super-duper metadata-based storage system, but you don't even want to bother giving the file a name ? And how is a database-based file system going to store files without some sort of unique primary key (such as the full pathname) ?
".....Why do we have to give them a file extension. These are all antiquated file system concepts which are completely meaningless for a modern OS."
So something that all popular modern OS-es use is completely meaningless for a modern OS ?
"An extension was a cheap way to get the OS to launch or open a file related to a specific program, but it would be completely unnecessary if the file itself embedded its type or had an entry in a database record. The name of a file would purely be a description and only one of many ways to identify a file."
Do some reading-up on how the Unix/Linux "file" command works.
".....and if we EVER want something like what we have seen in Star Trek, where people can ask a computer real language queries, we NEED a relational file system."
The only thing I've ever wanted that I've seen in star trek is this (and it doesn't rely on a relational file system).
OK, OK, I'm kidding
"I'm pretty sure that Microsoft feels that they, as the sole OS provider for the majority of the world, are in the driver's seat when it comes to hardware specs. Without much question, they know that people will end up buying whatever hardware they are directed by Microsoft to buy, because they have little choice. Much of this fact can be laid squarely at the feet of the Linux zealots who insist that there is no need for Linux to be "consumer friendly"."
Error......does not compute.
So the "Linux zealots" are actively preventing anyone who is trying to make Linux more "consumer friendly" from doing so ? How are they doing this ?
I would have thought that your "Linux zealots" are still zealously using the command-line to the exclusion of all else (not that this is at all a bad thing for those, and only those, who feel more comfortable or efficient using it), whereas those who seek a more "consumer friendly" experience are using (or helping to develop) KDE or Gnome (or whatever), and ignoring the first group.
But of course you knew this all along. You just wanted an excuse to rant about "Linux zealots", didn't you ?
"The notion that it is caused by what puny humans can do is just laughable."
Why is it that human beings (all 6+ billion of us) suddenly become puny and insignificant when, and only when, global warming is mentioned?
"One has only to look at the phenomenon of Mt. Pinatubo and Mt. St. Helens--both of which put more particulates into the atmosphere in DAYS than humans have throughout their history--to realize the earth is a self-regulating system."
A self-regulating system just like, for example, the human body. Until the day it has a major heart attack. Or until it can no longer cope with the over-eating and lack and exercise and develops diabetes. Bad analogy? OK then, what about the planet Venus? It's closer to the sun than we are, but not close enough to explain it's heat. But that's OK, right? Surely, in a few billion years time, it'll just sort itself out again?
"Global warming, if it is really happening, is a natural occurence, and will bring as much benefit as it does harm."
Hmmmm, you seem to need to cover yourself here. Just in case some people didn't actually believe you that it isn't happening, and/or it isn't our fault, well now it's not even a problem.
In which case, why did you make all your previous arguments?
"However, socialist politicians, who lust for the power to establish their order in the lives of individuals, are using it as a pretext for a power grab. This must NEVER be allowed to happen."
Oh, so it's all the fault of people you don't like? Good job the argument isn't over anything actually important.
Muppet.
"Without it many corporations with deep pockets could possibly collapse since their intellectual property would be carbon copied dissolving their efforts and work."
Complete rubbish. What about copyright? What about simply not publishing the source code?
"For someone in the business world to wish away the patenting system is irresponsible."
Unless they live in Europe, of course. Or various other places which aren't the USA.
"Without someone to intervene, businesses could collapse, economical and industrial warfare would be off the meter."
".....Much to much economical damage could occur from it. When an economy is damaged to an extreme the snowball effect tends to lead to poverty, crime, disease, etc."
Disease ???
Well-trolled, sir. Congratulations on your +5, and shame on the moderators.
No probably about it.