Re:Right tool for the job
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Linus on DRM
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· Score: 1
Next time, try thinking first.
The reason why HURD development is taking so long is because it uses the microkernel idea, whereas Linux is a monolithic kernel. It has nothing to do with politics. It has everything to do with a bad engineering choice, which was understandable. Please read the debate threat between Torvalds and that guy who invented MINIX, regarding the micro vs. monolithic kernels. The mistake was understandable, as at the time, it was commonly thought that microkernels were superior.
Btw, even if not for Linus, BSD would still be around, and there's nothing saying GPL'ed tools wouldn't have been used on it. Finally, the FSF got a lot of work -- alot more than Linus -- done on Free Software. They build the entire set of GNU-applications. This was a lot of work, and is very substantial (most notably, in my mind, GCC, an excellent compiler). Without the FSF, Linus' kernel would be nothing more -- just a kernel, which isn't in itself useful.
Summarily, they both needed eachother.
some restrictions != bad
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Linus on DRM
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· Score: 1
Gee, it prevents you from placing draconian EULA restrictions on modified distributions. Basically, the GPL prevents you from clobbering your neighbor on the head. Bad GPL! Bad Bad!
What you and other whiners about the GPL want is the right to take GPL'ed code, make changes/additions, and then distribute them without giving anything back to the community. You want to leach off of other people's work for your own gain and/or profit. You complain because the GPL doesn't allow you to use it's code as a basis for software licensed with EULAs that would give you the right to terminate the user's license to use the software for no reason.
The only people who really have cause to complain about the GPL are proprietary developers who are salivating over superior GPL'ed software, which they want to grab, modify, proprietize, and profit off of without even giving source code back. That's why MS likes the revised BSD license so much. They can grab anything there and use it without giving anything back.
Sorry, I don't give a damn about those of you whining about the GPL because it prevents proprietary companies from taking away every conceivable end-user right.
DRM vs. signing
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Linus on DRM
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· Score: 3, Insightful
Digital rights management is just that -- digital rights management. It is designed to prevent me from making fair use of MY software, music, DVDs, whatever.
I think what Linus is talking about is an entirely different applications of essentially the same technology. He's talking about signing as being a good thing, so that we -- the users -- can verify, for example, that the latest kernel release was actually released by Linus, and not some poser. This is good and fine. If we want to be able to verify such things, we simply install the appropriate verifying software, with internalized or modularized support in the kernel; alternatively, we can add/remove that verifying feature from the source.
In other words, *we* have the option to have these things, which would allow us to verify that the latest kernel release was actually signed by Linus (doesn't GPG do this?)
However, DRM and digital signing can never work in a GPL'ed system unless the person controlling the computer wants them. You're welcome to put a DRM-scheme in any GPL'ed (say) CD-player, referring to an external closed key. I, however, if I don't like that, can remove that from the source, thus have the program not even request such a key. Likewise with signing. This does not mean that DRM and signing are useless on GNU/Linux. It just means that they can't* be imposed against the administrator's will. The administrator of the computer can still use them -- if (s)he wants -- to verify that updates are signed by individual's they trust. And they can still use them to ensure that ordinary users on those machines (if said machines are corporate) can't use them to violate copyright laws, which would create liability for the corporation. However, the administrator can also choose *not* to use them.
I also don't see how RMS is the counter-point in this case. RMS has had ample opportunities to include anti-commercial, antiÐadvertising, and patent-fighting terms into the GPL. He has refused. I e-mailed him asking about the Open Software License, which has a clause in it that would terminate the right of anyone to use that software if they brought a patent lawsuite against any other under an OSI-approved license with the same clause in it. I suggested he put such into the GPL to ward off patent lawsuites. He refused, stating that there was already something in the GPL preventing stealth patents from infecting GPL'ed programs.
I don't think it's enough, but his worry is that such a clause would make the GPL a EULA, regulating the user's actual *use* of the software. I also don't see anywhere where RMS or anyone else in the FSF has said that the GPL bans DRM and signing, nor that it should be modified to do so. As it happens, I think that such a clause should be included in the GPL, because patents are a major problem for ALL software developers. If developers had to do exhaustive patent searches before writing code, nothing would EVER be produced. I think, however, that anyone who wants such a clause can simply add it to the GPL in their own modified version of it.
* The worrysome case, however, is with things like requiring DRM by law, or by hardware code. There are nazi ideas floating around to make it legally required for all software to use DRM. This may not directly affect any FS/OSS projects, as they can simply move abroad. However, one should not understimate the power of multinational corporations to get the WTO to penalize nations that don't agree to the US' draconian IP laws. Furthermore, hardware initiatives like Palladium would prevent GNU/Linux from running on hardware at all.
Ensures that 1-3 are perpetuated in derivative software
BSD:
protects user rights
Grants external developers more extra rights than GPL
Copyright holders retain original rights
Does not ensure 1 & 2 perpetually in derivative works, thus users and developers can be denied those rights in the future
The main problem with the BSD licenses is that they make it impossible to compete with a proprietary competitor. You're releasing stuff under the BSD license, some proprietary developer can just grab all of your work, include it in their code, but give nothing back. They can use you're work to benefit themselves. But not vica versa. This means that the Free Software developers can never ever outcompete the proprietary developers, because the proprietary developers get everything the Free Software developers have made, and don't have to return a thing.
If you are aiming to compete with proprietary developers, this is not the way to go. That is, if you want Free Software to be the dominantly used software, it has a lesser chance of succeeding.
If you don't want to compete with proprietary developers, then that's perfectly fine. You don't have to. If you want to make something that will assist proprietary developers in bringing products to GNU/Linux, then BSD may be a better way to go. See OggVorbis.
Really, imo, alot of the people who bitch and moan so much about software being GPL'ed are those -- like MS -- who want to take code and benefit from it, without giving anything back. That's why MS loves the BSD-license. At least the people whining about this from a perspective of, "but, proprietary developers have to GPL their code if they include GPL'ed code". Yes, it's called a community. The GPL was designed to prevent leaches like MS from leaching off of the community.
Please don't mis-represent my point. I did not say that you can play games or encode OGG-files while compiling software and get good performance/responsiveness. I believe I specifically mentioned common-day activities that all of us tend to do, which includes web-browsing, e-mail checking, document creation, and other "productivity" things...I haven't tried watching movies yet, but I suspect that wouldn't be a problem, since that goes through the graphics card.
I am also not talking about a 486. That was my fault for not specifying. I'm on a 1.1GHz, 256MB RAM, 64MB GeForce 2 GTS, 19" monitor system (which I run at 2046x1536 resolution). On that particular system, I can compile and do other things fine. Those with similar systems should have similar experiences. Even on my "high-power" (though it's not really high-power anymore) system, I could not compile something and do other things productively on Windows.
I'm not talking about a 486 here. if you have a 486, you should be compiling on some other, high-power, system and then moving that over to your 486. This would be especially important for such old crappy processors, because any extra optimization would help alot.
Experimental? Come on. Maybe -O3 and then a series of other additional optimizations beyond that are experimental. But the sane optimizations most people use are not experimental. I, myself, default to:
Btw, compiling everything from scratch is hardly "unstable". That's what FreeBSD does. Furthermore, memory optimizations often-times increase system-stability, by reducing the likelihood of situations where there isn't enough RAM. Furthermore, some of the USE settings increase stability by eliminating compiled-in support for crap that you don't use. If you don't use something, and support for it is compiled in, it's just useless crap that has the potential to reduce stability.
"Does" this all for you. By "does", I mean that the install guide forcefully tells you to alter your/etc/make.conf file to include support for the features you want and the optimizations you want.
Btw, you don't just sit around for 8 hours waiting for something to compile. If you're in CLI-only, you do the following:
emerge screen screen emerge kde C^A C^C
Then you do whatever else you want to do. I recommend getting IRSSI and Lynx for internet-amusement.
If you already have Xfree86 setup, then you do the following:
emerge ratpoison C^A C^C
Then run whatever graphical X-programs you want in your new ratpoison windows.
This is the beauty of a *modern day* multi-tasking OS like GNU/Linux. This isn't the same crap as Micro$oft. You can compile something AND do other things at the same time, since memory management is great as is multi-tasking (depending on your kernel and compile options for the kernel). Try compiling something using MS's compilers and doing something else at the same time. I compiled WindowMaker, for example, while doing other tasks in ratpoison.
As for compile-time optimizations, I recommend the following:
That will optimize for small-size binaries and minimal RAM usage. I recommend the -Os optimization for the vast majority of applications, most of which are not CPU-intensive. That includes WMs, DEs, word-processors, spreadsheets, internet browsers, e-mail programs, GIMP, etc. I recommend -O2 for things which are CPU-intensive, like video/sound players, video/sound encoders, DNA/AA sequence alignment, and bayesian phylogenies.
Make sure to
man gcc
So you know what your doing. Hint: once you hit a certain point with optimization, you can't have it both ways. Higher levels of optimization involve trading a memory/speed tradeoff, and you can go one way or the other. As I suggested before, I suggest memory optimizations for non-CPU intensive programs (the one's you'll probably be using all of the time, thus which'll be clogging up your memory); and speed optimizations for CPU-intensive programs, which you probably won't use as much.
Someone else already pointed out all of the above to me, and I looked it up and altered my opinion on that particular case, McDonalds (see other comments on it by me, as response).
However, my comments on this SPAM-lawsuit still stand.
If people are in violation because of SCO's refusal to point out to people that some code is their's, then they lose any arguments for damages.
This is really a case-text example of a lawsuite where some court clerk should have looked at it and said, "that's fucking bullshit" and in the trash it goes. As it stands, SCO should be fined a hundred-thousand dollars for wasting everyone's time (oh wait, that would assume they actually had a hundred thousand dollars...hahahhahaha).
If GNU/Linux had SCO code in it, it would suck. It wouldn't run on most hardware. It would be a downright flop, just like SCO.
But,even if that was the case -- if somehow there was something in SCO worthy of being placed into GNU/Linux -- it's pretty irrelevant. IBM could easily buy out SCO. Hell, RedHat could probably buy out SCO. When was the last time this company turned a profit?
However, though we can't quantify emotional and physical pain, it is a good idea to have fines against companies to discourage them from doing such.
But, that money shouldn't go towards any one person (but rather a distribution of physical health charities/benefits, as deterrmined by the court).
Another, better, solution is to create criminal penalties for such actions. The executives who made the decision to have the coffee sold that hot showed a clear and depraved indifference to human life (as 3rd degree burns can be lethal) and human suffering. Another example as to why corporate personhood is bad -- individuals should not be able to hide behind a corporate wall of reduced liability to shield themselves from criminal penalties for what are criminal actions. I would call it criminal negligence.
Those who served the coffee that hot were also criminally neglibible if they knew that it could cause such burns.
Ok, after reading the article, I submit that the case was not bullshit. And I'm not entirely sure that -- even for such a large sum of money -- I would want to endure those burns (the mentions of genital and buttockal burns makes it a little bit hard to bear). I still stand by my statement that over a million dollars is too much money in award.
I'm not too hot on the idea of punitive damages, since it is impossible to quantify emotional and physical pain in a dollar amount. Compensatory damages, however, are more straightforward: the cost of dealing with the injury, plus the cost of any related-therapy thereafter, plus the cost lost from not being able to work.
Yes, so what? That still doesn't mean this old bag deserved to get over a million dollars, okay. Shit, pour scalding hot water on my leg -- for over a million dollars, I'll take it.
Make McDonald's pay for the cost of her medical bill, and a *reasonable* amount in compensation for pain and suffering (hint, over a million dollars is obviously not reasonable). And enforce a court ruling preventing them from serving coffee that hot.
The burdens such would put on Amazon.com would be impossible to meet in a cost-effective manner, without hindering adult customers who just want to use the site unhindreed.
It is not Amazon.com's job -- or anyone else's job -- to babysit your kids while you're away. Every parent knows damn well that there is the full spectrum of stuff on the internet, and leaving one's child alone poses that risk.
The right to privacy doesn't mean other people should have to spend their money and their time making sure you and your kids have privacy. Some fuck doesn't wear a condom or some bitch doesn't wear a diaphram, and now all of the sudden, the rest of us have to change our lives because of their mistake and unwillingness to accept responsibility for their children.
It says something about our crappy legal system that total crap like this can even be introduced into a court. There should be a pre-trial hearing to determine if something's even worthy of appearing in a court. No fancy legal bullshit, just some guy who looks at something and says, "that's fucking bullshit...trash can". Like the McD's coffee lawsuite, this is fucking bullshit and should have been trashed by the court clerks upon receiving it.
blacklisting IP addresses of the plaintiffs
No-one has to use these blacklists. They can and have the right to blacklist anyone for any damn reason they choose. If individual's don't like their blacklisting policies, they can use a different blacklist. The fact is, these guys deserve to be blacklisted.
libel
Hahahhahahahahahahah. For something to be libel, it has to false. Every claim made about these slimebags is completely true. Period. End of discussion. In fact, these spammers need to be prosecuted for frauid: none of that crap you see in e-mails is true. It's all fraudulent.
invasion of privacy
Hahahahahah. If you send out thousands of e-mails a day, your e-mail address and contact information are not private. In fact, your e-mail address, phone number, or house number do not get the protection of privacy. That is all public information. Even if this claim was true, there are no penalties for invasion of privacy of the kind they could possibly be referrign to.
the publication of allegedly false information
Bullshit.
"intentionally interference with a contract"
Bullshit. No-one who has received SPAM had a contract with the spammer to receive it. Period. End of discussion.
This crap should have been trashed by the clerks who received it, and these guys should have been fined a hundred thousand dollars for wasting the court's time.
Your underestanding of the insanity defense is a little bit warped. Insanity as a defense only works if the defendant did not know what they were doing was wrong or if they could not control their actions. If you hear Jodie Foster in your head telling you to kill someone, you still know that's wrong, and still have control of your actions.
VB is total crap. No serious developers actually use it. MS has been trying to push that crap on us for a long time now, but no-one's taking. Partly because so many of the script-kiddies, virus', and other malicious code are VB.
Colleges still teach C as the primary language for development. And that's the way it should be. Java is only good for net-apps -- no-one's going to be writing word-processor, internet-browsers, or anything else of significane with it. Some of the various object-orientated C's are useful, like Objective-C. I should be noted, however, that it's perfectly possible to write object-oriented code in C; and perfectly possible to write C-style code in C++.
Trusted according to some B2 level security criteria? Microsoft just got some kind of certification similar to that. This is bullshit. Getting these kind of certifications -- like getting the POSIX-compliant certification -- also costs millions of dollars, which FS and OSS developers can't afford and don't need.
Putting some fucking label on a product like B2 level security is NOT going to make it any more or less secure. It is bullshit to assist the mindless masses, and it in fact hinders theme, because it can lie. Does anyone really think that Slowlaris is more than OpenBSD, for example?
Quite frankly, we don't need some security certification to tell us whether or not a FS or OSS software is secure or not. Most of these projects have honesty policies, requiring that they disclose any problems, and we can always look at the code, if we're developers; furthermore, the community is highly organized in the OSS and FS worlds -- much more so than will ever be possible in the proprietary world -- we we can evaluate these things by user-rating and comment.
Formal proof will come with time, as people realize that these "tweaks" and "security enhancements" prevent buffer overflow attacks. We're not going to waste millions of dollars, however, to get a certification that doesn't mean shit. Real-world testing means something. See the F117 Stealth Fighter. Lab-based testing in a narrowly confined environment, however, doesn't mean shit.
Your post displays a complete and total ignorance of how science works. The simple fact is, we never know what's going to lead to what. Prof. Gorovsky at the University of Rochester has spend years researching a single-celled Eukaryote, Tetrahymena, which doesn't superficially appear to have any relation to human problems. However, it is in Tetrahymena that telomeres and telomerase were discovered, which has major implications for cancer. It was in Tetrahymena that many advances in RNA-interference, a technique which may be useful for shutting down (for example) viral proteins in humans, have occured. Studying biology at a basic level on primitive organisms often has enormous impacts in other areas. And it works vica-versa too, as well as between different areas on a similar level. Research on HIV and AIDS doesn't just lead to more knowledge about how to stop HIV; it leads to information on our immune system, and all sorts of other biological processes in humans.
Of course, your post is exactly how these idiots in Congress think. In their puny little brains, somehow it makes sense that the research done in NASA has lead to many other good things, and it should be funded, even though it's direct goals are completely useless to human beings; while the same should not be true in the biological sciences.
Hey, if I'm living on the ocean, I don't need sanitation. Wine, I can buy that in the US -- doesn't mean I have to live in the US. Ocean water can be filtered (or boiled) to produce drinkable water. Public health care -- never done shit for me. I'll save my money and pay for my own health problems: don't get my money's worth by taxes (only the lazy people get their money's worth out of the gov't). Roads -- again, don't need them on the ocean. Not that I'm actually planning on moving to sea.
The kind of person who would make a statement like this is the kind of person who has never faced death at the hands of another.
Actually, one of the founding father's said that (I believe Benjamin Franklin). The founding father's obviously faced death at the hands of others (e.g., war for independence), so shut your cakehole.
And I think the point was that security and freedom aren't mutually exclusive. It is only lazy people who hate freedom that want to try to convince you that they are.
Please, your unlikely hypothetical cases don't mean shit. Last time I checked, pirating went out of business before the Renaissance.
Of more concern to someone who'd like to live on international waters is providing for critical things like electricity so that one can power one's computer to connect to slashdot, and watch TV.
Slashdot Mirror
Next time, try thinking first.
The reason why HURD development is taking so long is because it uses the microkernel idea, whereas Linux is a monolithic kernel. It has nothing to do with politics. It has everything to do with a bad engineering choice, which was understandable. Please read the debate threat between Torvalds and that guy who invented MINIX, regarding the micro vs. monolithic kernels. The mistake was understandable, as at the time, it was commonly thought that microkernels were superior.
Btw, even if not for Linus, BSD would still be around, and there's nothing saying GPL'ed tools wouldn't have been used on it. Finally, the FSF got a lot of work -- alot more than Linus -- done on Free Software. They build the entire set of GNU-applications. This was a lot of work, and is very substantial (most notably, in my mind, GCC, an excellent compiler). Without the FSF, Linus' kernel would be nothing more -- just a kernel, which isn't in itself useful.
Summarily, they both needed eachother.
Gee, it prevents you from placing draconian EULA restrictions on modified distributions. Basically, the GPL prevents you from clobbering your neighbor on the head. Bad GPL! Bad Bad!
What you and other whiners about the GPL want is the right to take GPL'ed code, make changes/additions, and then distribute them without giving anything back to the community. You want to leach off of other people's work for your own gain and/or profit. You complain because the GPL doesn't allow you to use it's code as a basis for software licensed with EULAs that would give you the right to terminate the user's license to use the software for no reason.
The only people who really have cause to complain about the GPL are proprietary developers who are salivating over superior GPL'ed software, which they want to grab, modify, proprietize, and profit off of without even giving source code back. That's why MS likes the revised BSD license so much. They can grab anything there and use it without giving anything back.
Sorry, I don't give a damn about those of you whining about the GPL because it prevents proprietary companies from taking away every conceivable end-user right.
Digital rights management is just that -- digital rights management. It is designed to prevent me from making fair use of MY software, music, DVDs, whatever.
I think what Linus is talking about is an entirely different applications of essentially the same technology. He's talking about signing as being a good thing, so that we -- the users -- can verify, for example, that the latest kernel release was actually released by Linus, and not some poser. This is good and fine. If we want to be able to verify such things, we simply install the appropriate verifying software, with internalized or modularized support in the kernel; alternatively, we can add/remove that verifying feature from the source.
In other words, *we* have the option to have these things, which would allow us to verify that the latest kernel release was actually signed by Linus (doesn't GPG do this?)
However, DRM and digital signing can never work in a GPL'ed system unless the person controlling the computer wants them. You're welcome to put a DRM-scheme in any GPL'ed (say) CD-player, referring to an external closed key. I, however, if I don't like that, can remove that from the source, thus have the program not even request such a key. Likewise with signing. This does not mean that DRM and signing are useless on GNU/Linux. It just means that they can't* be imposed against the administrator's will. The administrator of the computer can still use them -- if (s)he wants -- to verify that updates are signed by individual's they trust. And they can still use them to ensure that ordinary users on those machines (if said machines are corporate) can't use them to violate copyright laws, which would create liability for the corporation. However, the administrator can also choose *not* to use them.
I also don't see how RMS is the counter-point in this case. RMS has had ample opportunities to include anti-commercial, antiÐadvertising, and patent-fighting terms into the GPL. He has refused. I e-mailed him asking about the Open Software License, which has a clause in it that would terminate the right of anyone to use that software if they brought a patent lawsuite against any other under an OSI-approved license with the same clause in it. I suggested he put such into the GPL to ward off patent lawsuites. He refused, stating that there was already something in the GPL preventing stealth patents from infecting GPL'ed programs.
I don't think it's enough, but his worry is that such a clause would make the GPL a EULA, regulating the user's actual *use* of the software. I also don't see anywhere where RMS or anyone else in the FSF has said that the GPL bans DRM and signing, nor that it should be modified to do so. As it happens, I think that such a clause should be included in the GPL, because patents are a major problem for ALL software developers. If developers had to do exhaustive patent searches before writing code, nothing would EVER be produced. I think, however, that anyone who wants such a clause can simply add it to the GPL in their own modified version of it.
* The worrysome case, however, is with things like requiring DRM by law, or by hardware code. There are nazi ideas floating around to make it legally required for all software to use DRM. This may not directly affect any FS/OSS projects, as they can simply move abroad. However, one should not understimate the power of multinational corporations to get the WTO to penalize nations that don't agree to the US' draconian IP laws. Furthermore, hardware initiatives like Palladium would prevent GNU/Linux from running on hardware at all.
- protects user rights
- Grants external developers extra rights
- Copyright holders retain rights
- Ensures that 1-3 are perpetuated in derivative software
BSD:- protects user rights
- Grants external developers more extra rights than GPL
- Copyright holders retain original rights
- Does not ensure 1 & 2 perpetually in derivative works, thus users and developers can be denied those rights in the future
The main problem with the BSD licenses is that they make it impossible to compete with a proprietary competitor. You're releasing stuff under the BSD license, some proprietary developer can just grab all of your work, include it in their code, but give nothing back. They can use you're work to benefit themselves. But not vica versa. This means that the Free Software developers can never ever outcompete the proprietary developers, because the proprietary developers get everything the Free Software developers have made, and don't have to return a thing.If you are aiming to compete with proprietary developers, this is not the way to go. That is, if you want Free Software to be the dominantly used software, it has a lesser chance of succeeding.
If you don't want to compete with proprietary developers, then that's perfectly fine. You don't have to. If you want to make something that will assist proprietary developers in bringing products to GNU/Linux, then BSD may be a better way to go. See OggVorbis.
Really, imo, alot of the people who bitch and moan so much about software being GPL'ed are those -- like MS -- who want to take code and benefit from it, without giving anything back. That's why MS loves the BSD-license. At least the people whining about this from a perspective of, "but, proprietary developers have to GPL their code if they include GPL'ed code". Yes, it's called a community. The GPL was designed to prevent leaches like MS from leaching off of the community.
Hmmm...interesting...does this also work for C and Obj-C code? I just might redo the entire system with it if it does ;-)
If you want to install the latest, up-to-date packages, yes. If not, I think you can buy a set of CDs with all the stuff on it. Look around on Gentoo.
Please don't mis-represent my point. I did not say that you can play games or encode OGG-files while compiling software and get good performance/responsiveness. I believe I specifically mentioned common-day activities that all of us tend to do, which includes web-browsing, e-mail checking, document creation, and other "productivity" things...I haven't tried watching movies yet, but I suspect that wouldn't be a problem, since that goes through the graphics card.
I am also not talking about a 486. That was my fault for not specifying. I'm on a 1.1GHz, 256MB RAM, 64MB GeForce 2 GTS, 19" monitor system (which I run at 2046x1536 resolution). On that particular system, I can compile and do other things fine. Those with similar systems should have similar experiences. Even on my "high-power" (though it's not really high-power anymore) system, I could not compile something and do other things productively on Windows.
I'm not talking about a 486 here. if you have a 486, you should be compiling on some other, high-power, system and then moving that over to your 486. This would be especially important for such old crappy processors, because any extra optimization would help alot.
Experimental? Come on. Maybe -O3 and then a series of other additional optimizations beyond that are experimental. But the sane optimizations most people use are not experimental. I, myself, default to:
-march=athlon-tbird -Os -pipe -fomit-frame-pointer
Btw, compiling everything from scratch is hardly "unstable". That's what FreeBSD does. Furthermore, memory optimizations often-times increase system-stability, by reducing the likelihood of situations where there isn't enough RAM. Furthermore, some of the USE settings increase stability by eliminating compiled-in support for crap that you don't use. If you don't use something, and support for it is compiled in, it's just useless crap that has the potential to reduce stability.
"Does" this all for you. By "does", I mean that the install guide forcefully tells you to alter your /etc/make.conf file to include support for the features you want and the optimizations you want.
Btw, you don't just sit around for 8 hours waiting for something to compile. If you're in CLI-only, you do the following:
emerge screen
screen emerge kde
C^A C^C
Then you do whatever else you want to do. I recommend getting IRSSI and Lynx for internet-amusement.
If you already have Xfree86 setup, then you do the following:
emerge ratpoison
C^A C^C
Then run whatever graphical X-programs you want in your new ratpoison windows.
This is the beauty of a *modern day* multi-tasking OS like GNU/Linux. This isn't the same crap as Micro$oft. You can compile something AND do other things at the same time, since memory management is great as is multi-tasking (depending on your kernel and compile options for the kernel). Try compiling something using MS's compilers and doing something else at the same time. I compiled WindowMaker, for example, while doing other tasks in ratpoison.
As for compile-time optimizations, I recommend the following:
CFLAGS = -march=cpu_type -Os -pipe -fomit-frame-pointer
That will optimize for small-size binaries and minimal RAM usage. I recommend the -Os optimization for the vast majority of applications, most of which are not CPU-intensive. That includes WMs, DEs, word-processors, spreadsheets, internet browsers, e-mail programs, GIMP, etc. I recommend -O2 for things which are CPU-intensive, like video/sound players, video/sound encoders, DNA/AA sequence alignment, and bayesian phylogenies.
Make sure to
man gcc
So you know what your doing. Hint: once you hit a certain point with optimization, you can't have it both ways. Higher levels of optimization involve trading a memory/speed tradeoff, and you can go one way or the other. As I suggested before, I suggest memory optimizations for non-CPU intensive programs (the one's you'll probably be using all of the time, thus which'll be clogging up your memory); and speed optimizations for CPU-intensive programs, which you probably won't use as much.
Someone else already pointed out all of the above to me, and I looked it up and altered my opinion on that particular case, McDonalds (see other comments on it by me, as response).
However, my comments on this SPAM-lawsuit still stand.
If people are in violation because of SCO's refusal to point out to people that some code is their's, then they lose any arguments for damages.
This is really a case-text example of a lawsuite where some court clerk should have looked at it and said, "that's fucking bullshit" and in the trash it goes. As it stands, SCO should be fined a hundred-thousand dollars for wasting everyone's time (oh wait, that would assume they actually had a hundred thousand dollars...hahahhahaha).
If GNU/Linux had SCO code in it, it would suck. It wouldn't run on most hardware. It would be a downright flop, just like SCO.
But,even if that was the case -- if somehow there was something in SCO worthy of being placed into GNU/Linux -- it's pretty irrelevant. IBM could easily buy out SCO. Hell, RedHat could probably buy out SCO. When was the last time this company turned a profit?
what larger competitors?
However, though we can't quantify emotional and physical pain, it is a good idea to have fines against companies to discourage them from doing such.
But, that money shouldn't go towards any one person (but rather a distribution of physical health charities/benefits, as deterrmined by the court).
Another, better, solution is to create criminal penalties for such actions. The executives who made the decision to have the coffee sold that hot showed a clear and depraved indifference to human life (as 3rd degree burns can be lethal) and human suffering. Another example as to why corporate personhood is bad -- individuals should not be able to hide behind a corporate wall of reduced liability to shield themselves from criminal penalties for what are criminal actions. I would call it criminal negligence.
Those who served the coffee that hot were also criminally neglibible if they knew that it could cause such burns.
Ok, after reading the article, I submit that the case was not bullshit. And I'm not entirely sure that -- even for such a large sum of money -- I would want to endure those burns (the mentions of genital and buttockal burns makes it a little bit hard to bear). I still stand by my statement that over a million dollars is too much money in award.
I'm not too hot on the idea of punitive damages, since it is impossible to quantify emotional and physical pain in a dollar amount. Compensatory damages, however, are more straightforward: the cost of dealing with the injury, plus the cost of any related-therapy thereafter, plus the cost lost from not being able to work.
Yes, so what? That still doesn't mean this old bag deserved to get over a million dollars, okay. Shit, pour scalding hot water on my leg -- for over a million dollars, I'll take it.
Make McDonald's pay for the cost of her medical bill, and a *reasonable* amount in compensation for pain and suffering (hint, over a million dollars is obviously not reasonable). And enforce a court ruling preventing them from serving coffee that hot.
The burdens such would put on Amazon.com would be impossible to meet in a cost-effective manner, without hindering adult customers who just want to use the site unhindreed.
It is not Amazon.com's job -- or anyone else's job -- to babysit your kids while you're away. Every parent knows damn well that there is the full spectrum of stuff on the internet, and leaving one's child alone poses that risk.
The right to privacy doesn't mean other people should have to spend their money and their time making sure you and your kids have privacy. Some fuck doesn't wear a condom or some bitch doesn't wear a diaphram, and now all of the sudden, the rest of us have to change our lives because of their mistake and unwillingness to accept responsibility for their children.
It says something about our crappy legal system that total crap like this can even be introduced into a court. There should be a pre-trial hearing to determine if something's even worthy of appearing in a court. No fancy legal bullshit, just some guy who looks at something and says, "that's fucking bullshit...trash can". Like the McD's coffee lawsuite, this is fucking bullshit and should have been trashed by the court clerks upon receiving it.
blacklisting IP addresses of the plaintiffs
No-one has to use these blacklists. They can and have the right to blacklist anyone for any damn reason they choose. If individual's don't like their blacklisting policies, they can use a different blacklist. The fact is, these guys deserve to be blacklisted.
libel
Hahahhahahahahahahah. For something to be libel, it has to false. Every claim made about these slimebags is completely true. Period. End of discussion. In fact, these spammers need to be prosecuted for frauid: none of that crap you see in e-mails is true. It's all fraudulent.
invasion of privacy
Hahahahahah. If you send out thousands of e-mails a day, your e-mail address and contact information are not private. In fact, your e-mail address, phone number, or house number do not get the protection of privacy. That is all public information. Even if this claim was true, there are no penalties for invasion of privacy of the kind they could possibly be referrign to.
the publication of allegedly false information
Bullshit.
"intentionally interference with a contract"
Bullshit. No-one who has received SPAM had a contract with the spammer to receive it. Period. End of discussion.
This crap should have been trashed by the clerks who received it, and these guys should have been fined a hundred thousand dollars for wasting the court's time.
Your underestanding of the insanity defense is a little bit warped. Insanity as a defense only works if the defendant did not know what they were doing was wrong or if they could not control their actions. If you hear Jodie Foster in your head telling you to kill someone, you still know that's wrong, and still have control of your actions.
VB is total crap. No serious developers actually use it. MS has been trying to push that crap on us for a long time now, but no-one's taking. Partly because so many of the script-kiddies, virus', and other malicious code are VB.
Colleges still teach C as the primary language for development. And that's the way it should be. Java is only good for net-apps -- no-one's going to be writing word-processor, internet-browsers, or anything else of significane with it. Some of the various object-orientated C's are useful, like Objective-C. I should be noted, however, that it's perfectly possible to write object-oriented code in C; and perfectly possible to write C-style code in C++.
As for VB, it's just total and complete crap.
Trusted according to some B2 level security criteria? Microsoft just got some kind of certification similar to that. This is bullshit. Getting these kind of certifications -- like getting the POSIX-compliant certification -- also costs millions of dollars, which FS and OSS developers can't afford and don't need.
Putting some fucking label on a product like B2 level security is NOT going to make it any more or less secure. It is bullshit to assist the mindless masses, and it in fact hinders theme, because it can lie. Does anyone really think that Slowlaris is more than OpenBSD, for example?
Quite frankly, we don't need some security certification to tell us whether or not a FS or OSS software is secure or not. Most of these projects have honesty policies, requiring that they disclose any problems, and we can always look at the code, if we're developers; furthermore, the community is highly organized in the OSS and FS worlds -- much more so than will ever be possible in the proprietary world -- we we can evaluate these things by user-rating and comment.
Formal proof will come with time, as people realize that these "tweaks" and "security enhancements" prevent buffer overflow attacks. We're not going to waste millions of dollars, however, to get a certification that doesn't mean shit. Real-world testing means something. See the F117 Stealth Fighter. Lab-based testing in a narrowly confined environment, however, doesn't mean shit.
Your post displays a complete and total ignorance of how science works. The simple fact is, we never know what's going to lead to what. Prof. Gorovsky at the University of Rochester has spend years researching a single-celled Eukaryote, Tetrahymena, which doesn't superficially appear to have any relation to human problems. However, it is in Tetrahymena that telomeres and telomerase were discovered, which has major implications for cancer. It was in Tetrahymena that many advances in RNA-interference, a technique which may be useful for shutting down (for example) viral proteins in humans, have occured. Studying biology at a basic level on primitive organisms often has enormous impacts in other areas. And it works vica-versa too, as well as between different areas on a similar level. Research on HIV and AIDS doesn't just lead to more knowledge about how to stop HIV; it leads to information on our immune system, and all sorts of other biological processes in humans.
Of course, your post is exactly how these idiots in Congress think. In their puny little brains, somehow it makes sense that the research done in NASA has lead to many other good things, and it should be funded, even though it's direct goals are completely useless to human beings; while the same should not be true in the biological sciences.
Hey, if I'm living on the ocean, I don't need sanitation. Wine, I can buy that in the US -- doesn't mean I have to live in the US. Ocean water can be filtered (or boiled) to produce drinkable water. Public health care -- never done shit for me. I'll save my money and pay for my own health problems: don't get my money's worth by taxes (only the lazy people get their money's worth out of the gov't). Roads -- again, don't need them on the ocean. Not that I'm actually planning on moving to sea.
The kind of person who would make a statement like this is the kind of person who has never faced death at the hands of another.
Actually, one of the founding father's said that (I believe Benjamin Franklin). The founding father's obviously faced death at the hands of others (e.g., war for independence), so shut your cakehole.
And I think the point was that security and freedom aren't mutually exclusive. It is only lazy people who hate freedom that want to try to convince you that they are.
Please, your unlikely hypothetical cases don't mean shit. Last time I checked, pirating went out of business before the Renaissance.
Of more concern to someone who'd like to live on international waters is providing for critical things like electricity so that one can power one's computer to connect to slashdot, and watch TV.