The problem most of the time isn't theft. The problem is users who THINK they know what they are doing but really don't. I have worked in several offices where everyone felt they could do whatever they felt like to their own computers and only called the admin when they were at a loss of how to fix it.
Some noteable moments:
The user who decided he needed a better sound card so he switched his with a "less important" user. I get called in when both machines have screwed up drivers
The user who thought that his department should have his own file server but then didn't secure it properly. They had to shut the server down to block the resulting viral infection that took out half the office.
The constant complaints that our 10 meg fiber internet connection feeding an office of 30 people just wasn't fast enough thanks to some user thinking (s)he closed his/her file sharing app but only backgrounded it.
The screaming panicked call from my boss telling me our website was hacked because our web page now contained links to other websites.. Turned out the machine he was viewing it on had adware installed that came with his favorite file sharing service.
Why is our traffic so high and why are we getting spam complaints? Traced to a user with a non secured wireless gateway being hijacked by some spammer.
Spotty network connectivity traced by another admin to a wireless gateway plugged in BACKWARDS and was feeding DHCP packets onto the network that provided a network connection to nowhere.
Show me a way in advance to know what users can be trusted and I'll consider letting users have more control. Until then I'll demand that users don't' mess with anything for no other reason that I end up with more work every time they mess up.
Thank god there's no way to shop, say, over some communication medium at a non-local store and have it delivered via post. If there were an easy way to place an order in another country and have it delivered, that would really cause problems for this law. You know, somebody should invent something like that - they'd probably make a fortune.
Not going to happen. For starters the shipping costs will drive the price up higher than CFL and given the beating most couriers give any package I send through them I'd hate to see what something as fragile as light bulbs would look like coming out the other side.
I have an outdoor CFL and I'm in Montreal Canada.. so far it's survived -25C(-13F) with no problems whatsoever. Where are you that the temperatures cause problems?
It's unfortunate to AMD and those who would support AMD. The customer gets a hotter, more power hungry processor, that is probably just as, if not more, expensive than a cooler, slower GHz rated Intel processor that outperforms the Athlon.
The AMD processors are cheaper than the Intel chips and the difference becomes even more noticeable when you throw in the difference in motherboard costs. I was pricing this out the other week when I wanted to upgrade. I considered a core2 but then looked at the total cost and when with an AMD x2 instead.
sure - i understand the frustration that's driving him. and i guess the MoPHPb will wake some folks up, hopefully the devs. but it'll wake up script-kiddies, too. in fact, that's what i fear most, it might only wake up the script kiddies, as the devs didn't seem to care in the past and that leaves more than thirty unpatched publicly documented security holes and a few folks, who need to run php. what a lot of fun...
The script kiddies are already awake. The probes for PHP vulnerabilities are getting more common. The scripts they use to detect flaws in web servers are probing deeper than ever before and can now detect holes in custom PHP code.
This is all about waking everyone one else up so hopefully the problems will get fixed
No.. it's a good thing. PHP apps are now the most common means of gaining a remote shell on Linux and as a sysadmin I have to constantly worry about what PHP code some customer installed can allow some attacker to break into my server. PHP allows some things it really shouldn't.. take includes on a variable for instance a few months back we had a machine spewing DoS attempts and the admin in charge of the box couldn't figure out how the attacker got a shell. The culprit? Some programmer used a variable to hold his includes and the attacker simply overrode that variable. Now you can (and we did) blame the programmer for being an idiot but the problem is that a language being sold as "great for anybody to start programming in" should be a lot safer by default I mean really.. what legitimate reason is there for that "feature" in the first place?
The Linux kernel is critical, but a similar project such as HURD coming out earlier could have filled the same spot.
The HURD did come out earlier than the Linux kernel.. years earlier in fact. You have to remember that a lot of Linux' success is in fact do to Linus' personality.
Accurate or not, it's a graph of Apache vs. IIS calls, NOT Linux vs. Windows. Also old as hell.
More to the point it conveys no useful info on how complex the calls are. Are they single function calls that pass off the core of the work to others or are they complicated calls that try to do too many things in one place?
I'm actually surprised the Apache graph was less cluttered than the IIS graph given that Microsoft tends to prefer functions that do as many things as possible so code can be better reused while apache is more UNIX like in that they tend to prefer smaller functions that are easier to debug. Of course a lot of that could just be the efficiency of the compiler
"linux" is usually done by nice people who want to give something away to the comunity, which is great and has been working excelent, but it can't beat commercial unixes.
Except that this hasn't been the case for some time now. Most of the developers are payed by Linux distros (Red Hat, Suse, hardware vendors(dell, AMD, Intel, Adaptec), UNIX vendors(IBM, SGI), software vendors(oracle), large companies whose business relies on Linux(Google) or a consortium of the above (Linux-foundation (formerly OSDL)).
Works Made for Hire. -- (1) a work prepared by an employee within the scope of his or her employment; or (2) a work specially ordered or commissioned for use as a contribution to a collective work, as a part of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, as a translation, as a supplementary work, as a compilation, as an instructional text, as a test, as answer material for a test, or as an atlas, if the parties expressly agree in a written instrument signed by them that the work shall be considered a work made for hire. 17 U.S.C. sec 101
The copyrights should be owned by the person who paid the photographer
That one line has got to be the best advertisement/endorsement for Linux and open source software that I've seen in a long time. If you are truly not trolling, think of how powerful that statement is: "Linux: even your neighbor's 15-year-old kid can maintain it." We should welcome software that is that easy to use and maintain, not lament it's arrival.
Please don't. Microsoft already beat us to that one by sparring over Novell over who could have the youngest certified professional. I think the winner was Microsoft by giving an MCSE to a 12 year old.
The only real result of that is the test was too easy and MCSE is now an industry wide joke.
I have rarely enjoyed headline puns and usually just find them irritating instead. I'm sure the journalists think it's funny because other journalists think it's funny.
Kind of like webcomic artists who think characters talking to the writer is somehow witty because the other webcomics all do the same.
It's not funny. It might have been funny the first 10 times it was done but now it's stale and boring. If you ask me the search engines have done them a huge favor by forcing them to put an end to it.
That's the fun thing about Canada. Depending on the province there are lengths time required that the employer has let you know in advance before terminating without cause. If an employer doesn't want you around they will often just pay up front for the required notice time amount and tell you not to come back.
I think it's a case of damned if they do, and damned if they don't. When Apple release a glossy but irritating GUI, it gets nothing but praise, but meanwhile Vista is complained about for wasting resources on it. I realise it's probably different people doing the complaining, and all the more reason it's annoying that Microsoft have had to follow Apple in the looks department, but it's not Microsoft alone who are at fault here.
It should be noted that Apple pulls off "glossy" with a fraction of the required system specs as Vista.
This actually reduces fragmentation since only bug fixes get back ported. I don't know why he didn't mention it but the older branches are still maintained. If you want bug fixes then get 2.6.18.5 or something and only move between versions if you want new features. The distros are sending their fixes upstream.
If you think that's bad try open magazine I signed up to get their paper copy years ago and they helpfully signed me up for their email list as well. The unsubscribe link only pretends to work and I got so desperate I set my mails server to bounce anything coming from them. A year later I removed the filter and two weeks later I got my monthly email from them.
Just didn't expect that from someone claiming to support Open Source.
Actually getting chastened is why the new dev cycle was invented. A good ways through each dev cycle people would start demanding new features and drivers from the dev kernel. The stable maintainer would then try to backport the new drivers without any of the supporting infrastructure resulting in TWO unstable kernels. The new system of merge small changes then debug has actually made both stable and unstable more reliable.
For the first time in years I can actually use a stable kernel on production hardware.
How many days after a site has been transformed by hijackers/forum spammers/whoever into a pile of crap should it come off the top of googles search results? A day? A week?
I wish. Their listed example "MDG" has a history of preloading whatever they feel like it and then giving AOL your credit card number so they can bill you in three months whether you even use AOL or not. "We don't go into your account sir so we cannnot know if you used it or not"
I'm not sure whose side I'm on with this one.. on one hand I could see where OEMs would want to preload with useful utilities but on the other hand they often go far beyond that and install outright crap. Even with XP I've gotten a lot of business by showing up at people's houses or offices and uninstalling some strange DVD burning software that was barely tolerable with windows 98 but now it just crashes XP and doesn't work even half way as well as the cd burning wizard that is built into XP.
The patches that each comes up with the backport specific security features will be different, if only slightly. The patches that each comes up with to backport a highly requested feature will be slightly different. Over time these slight differences will add up to become real differences between the distros.
Distros should NEVER backport features. That's the whole point of the new development system. If you want a stable kernel stay with the point release your on and just add the security/stabillity patches. If you want new features use a newer kernel.
That right there was the exact problem with the old even/odd split. The time between the two ended up being so great that people/vendors would start backporting features and destabilizing the "stable series" kernel.
Distros forking the kernel has always been an annoyance so it's nothing new either. I've been playing the "wich distro has the drivers I need" game since 2.0.x and it got to the point where I just never use distro kernels anymore I just compile my own and add that to the installer.
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The problem most of the time isn't theft. The problem is users who THINK they know what they are doing but really don't. I have worked in several offices where everyone felt they could do whatever they felt like to their own computers and only called the admin when they were at a loss of how to fix it.
Some noteable moments:Show me a way in advance to know what users can be trusted and I'll consider letting users have more control. Until then I'll demand that users don't' mess with anything for no other reason that I end up with more work every time they mess up.
Thank god there's no way to shop, say, over some communication medium at a non-local store and have it delivered via post. If there were an easy way to place an order in another country and have it delivered, that would really cause problems for this law. You know, somebody should invent something like that - they'd probably make a fortune.
Not going to happen. For starters the shipping costs will drive the price up higher than CFL and given the beating most couriers give any package I send through them I'd hate to see what something as fragile as light bulbs would look like coming out the other side.
I have an outdoor CFL and I'm in Montreal Canada.. so far it's survived -25C(-13F) with no problems whatsoever. Where are you that the temperatures cause problems?
It's unfortunate to AMD and those who would support AMD. The customer gets a hotter, more power hungry processor, that is probably just as, if not more, expensive than a cooler, slower GHz rated Intel processor that outperforms the Athlon.
The AMD processors are cheaper than the Intel chips and the difference becomes even more noticeable when you throw in the difference in motherboard costs. I was pricing this out the other week when I wanted to upgrade. I considered a core2 but then looked at the total cost and when with an AMD x2 instead.
sure - i understand the frustration that's driving him. and i guess the MoPHPb will wake some folks up, hopefully the devs. but it'll wake up script-kiddies, too. in fact, that's what i fear most, it might only wake up the script kiddies, as the devs didn't seem to care in the past and that leaves more than thirty unpatched publicly documented security holes and a few folks, who need to run php. what a lot of fun...
The script kiddies are already awake. The probes for PHP vulnerabilities are getting more common. The scripts they use to detect flaws in web servers are probing deeper than ever before and can now detect holes in custom PHP code.
This is all about waking everyone one else up so hopefully the problems will get fixed
No.. it's a good thing. PHP apps are now the most common means of gaining a remote shell on Linux and as a sysadmin I have to constantly worry about what PHP code some customer installed can allow some attacker to break into my server. PHP allows some things it really shouldn't.. take includes on a variable for instance a few months back we had a machine spewing DoS attempts and the admin in charge of the box couldn't figure out how the attacker got a shell. The culprit? Some programmer used a variable to hold his includes and the attacker simply overrode that variable. Now you can (and we did) blame the programmer for being an idiot but the problem is that a language being sold as "great for anybody to start programming in" should be a lot safer by default I mean really.. what legitimate reason is there for that "feature" in the first place?
The Linux kernel is critical, but a similar project such as HURD coming out earlier could have filled the same spot.
The HURD did come out earlier than the Linux kernel.. years earlier in fact. You have to remember that a lot of Linux' success is in fact do to Linus' personality.
Accurate or not, it's a graph of Apache vs. IIS calls, NOT Linux vs. Windows. Also old as hell.
More to the point it conveys no useful info on how complex the calls are. Are they single function calls that pass off the core of the work to others or are they complicated calls that try to do too many things in one place?
I'm actually surprised the Apache graph was less cluttered than the IIS graph given that Microsoft tends to prefer functions that do as many things as possible so code can be better reused while apache is more UNIX like in that they tend to prefer smaller functions that are easier to debug. Of course a lot of that could just be the efficiency of the compiler
"linux" is usually done by nice people who want to give something away to the comunity, which is great and has been working excelent, but it can't beat commercial unixes.
Except that this hasn't been the case for some time now. Most of the developers are payed by Linux distros (Red Hat, Suse, hardware vendors(dell, AMD, Intel, Adaptec), UNIX vendors(IBM, SGI), software vendors(oracle), large companies whose business relies on Linux(Google) or a consortium of the above (Linux-foundation (formerly OSDL)).
And I'm not just talking about the kernel.
Doesn't that qualify as a "work for hire?
Works Made for Hire. -- (1) a work prepared by an employee within the scope of his or her employment; or (2) a work specially ordered or commissioned for use as a contribution to a collective work, as a part of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, as a translation, as a supplementary work, as a compilation, as an instructional text, as a test, as answer material for a test, or as an atlas, if the parties expressly agree in a written instrument signed by them that the work shall be considered a work made for hire. 17 U.S.C. sec 101
The copyrights should be owned by the person who paid the photographer
That one line has got to be the best advertisement/endorsement for Linux and open source software that I've seen in a long time. If you are truly not trolling, think of how powerful that statement is: "Linux: even your neighbor's 15-year-old kid can maintain it." We should welcome software that is that easy to use and maintain, not lament it's arrival .
Please don't. Microsoft already beat us to that one by sparring over Novell over who could have the youngest certified professional. I think the winner was Microsoft by giving an MCSE to a 12 year old.
The only real result of that is the test was too easy and MCSE is now an industry wide joke.
I have rarely enjoyed headline puns and usually just find them irritating instead. I'm sure the journalists think it's funny because other journalists think it's funny.
Kind of like webcomic artists who think characters talking to the writer is somehow witty because the other webcomics all do the same.
It's not funny. It might have been funny the first 10 times it was done but now it's stale and boring. If you ask me the search engines have done them a huge favor by forcing them to put an end to it.
Last I checked my switches were starting to generate larger amounts of heat. The GigE switches definitely seem warmer than the 100mbps were.
That's the fun thing about Canada. Depending on the province there are lengths time required that the employer has let you know in advance before terminating without cause. If an employer doesn't want you around they will often just pay up front for the required notice time amount and tell you not to come back.
I think it's a case of damned if they do, and damned if they don't. When Apple release a glossy but irritating GUI, it gets nothing but praise, but meanwhile Vista is complained about for wasting resources on it. I realise it's probably different people doing the complaining, and all the more reason it's annoying that Microsoft have had to follow Apple in the looks department, but it's not Microsoft alone who are at fault here.
It should be noted that Apple pulls off "glossy" with a fraction of the required system specs as Vista.
This actually reduces fragmentation since only bug fixes get back ported. I don't know why he didn't mention it but the older branches are still maintained. If you want bug fixes then get 2.6.18.5 or something and only move between versions if you want new features. The distros are sending their fixes upstream.
If you think that's bad try open magazine I signed up to get their paper copy years ago and they helpfully signed me up for their email list as well. The unsubscribe link only pretends to work and I got so desperate I set my mails server to bounce anything coming from them. A year later I removed the filter and two weeks later I got my monthly email from them.
Just didn't expect that from someone claiming to support Open Source.
Oops PATA(40 Pin not 50) is here. got the other link wrong.
The other option is a compact flash to IDE adapter. They come in SATA or PATA (50 pin)
You actually managed to install it? I'm jealous. Those drivers won't even compile on my system.
As opposed to the old way where the "stable" kernel has drivers that crash the system? Try the percraid drivers on 2.4.30 sometime.
Actually getting chastened is why the new dev cycle was invented. A good ways through each dev cycle people would start demanding new features and drivers from the dev kernel. The stable maintainer would then try to backport the new drivers without any of the supporting infrastructure resulting in TWO unstable kernels. The new system of merge small changes then debug has actually made both stable and unstable more reliable.
For the first time in years I can actually use a stable kernel on production hardware.
How many days after a site has been transformed by hijackers/forum spammers/whoever into a pile of crap should it come off the top of googles search results? A day? A week?
60 days but you can request reinclusion sooner with Google Webmaster tools
I wish. Their listed example "MDG" has a history of preloading whatever they feel like it and then giving AOL your credit card number so they can bill you in three months whether you even use AOL or not. "We don't go into your account sir so we cannnot know if you used it or not"
I'm not sure whose side I'm on with this one.. on one hand I could see where OEMs would want to preload with useful utilities but on the other hand they often go far beyond that and install outright crap. Even with XP I've gotten a lot of business by showing up at people's houses or offices and uninstalling some strange DVD burning software that was barely tolerable with windows 98 but now it just crashes XP and doesn't work even half way as well as the cd burning wizard that is built into XP.
The patches that each comes up with the backport specific security features will be different, if only slightly. The patches that each comes up with to backport a highly requested feature will be slightly different. Over time these slight differences will add up to become real differences between the distros.
Distros should NEVER backport features. That's the whole point of the new development system. If you want a stable kernel stay with the point release your on and just add the security/stabillity patches. If you want new features use a newer kernel.
That right there was the exact problem with the old even/odd split. The time between the two ended up being so great that people/vendors would start backporting features and destabilizing the "stable series" kernel.
Distros forking the kernel has always been an annoyance so it's nothing new either. I've been playing the "wich distro has the drivers I need" game since 2.0.x and it got to the point where I just never use distro kernels anymore I just compile my own and add that to the installer.