I'm quite sure that Linux NOW is not a distribution, but rather a protocal or application. Besides, why would the head of Debian leave to start another distribution? Please read the link.
And shame on all those moderators that moderated without reading the story!
Now I'm a big fan of the "university experience" myself; so much so that I went to a school (Trent) that was modeled on the Cambridge and Oxford system. But lots of students arrive every year that simply don't belong there. Perhaps everyone should be entitled to a post-secondary education, but that shouldn't be limited to the university atmosphere.
Colleges are always complaining that guidance counselors try and send everyone to university. Some of these people would get more satisfaction out of a concrete diploma rather than an abstract degree (while saving money, of course). High schools should be teaching critical thinking so that people shouldn't have to spend 4 specialised years getting it. On the other hand, there's many positions that would benefit from people with more abstract skills.
As much fun as the drinking and sex is, the actual lectures can be pretty damn interesting, from time to time.
That's short-sighted thinking. The technical degrees teach a lot of information that is based on recent developments. But philosophy students still study Plato*. What this means is that the skills taught in humanities are timeless. Therefore they should be better at adapting to massive paradigm shifts that send all the engineers back to school.
Also, law schools don't just want the undergraduate degrees to weed their applicant pool -- they could do that to a more satisfying degree in a single year of school. They require their applicants (and they must demonstrate this on the LSAT) to have some minimum level of critical thinking skills. The theory is that this is taught by every undergraduate course, no matter what subject you're critically thinking about.
And before you flame, I might note I'm currently pursuing a Computer Science & Philosophy joint-BSc. I urge everyone to do something similar whether fitting them both into an undergraduate degree, getting a college diploma, or just doing some in-depth reading on their own. I'm pretty confident that I could teach myself the content of my programming courses, but the mathematics and philosophy is what I'm in school for.
* Mind you, I'd love to study Babbage, but I'm forced to do it on my own time.:(
My biggest concern is that the system still has to keep flowing. Time must be a huge weighting to insure that the latest news is always on top. The problem is, the newest stuff hasn't been properly moderated yet which means I can have my news fast xor good. Perhaps if the stories were segregated by day it would aliviate that somewhat.
Still, it is more complicated and more critical that comment moderation so I can see why the staff hasn't implemented it yet (never mind the fact that it would make/. almost run itself).
Now don't get me wrong, I think that article moderation should be debated from time to time, but this case is not a good example of it. This article is dated today on rootprompt itself and is posted at the top of kuro5hin today as well. It seems unlikely that all three sources would be mistaken.
So then why even talk about Plan 9 servers? Isn't ever PC on the network both a server and a client unless you want a dedicated machine for more load (or space) than the workstations can handle together.
Re:Microsoft: Subversive Lawmaking?
on
Copyrant
·
· Score: 1
The most rational explanation for Microsoft's behavior has generally been that they wanted to goad Judge Jackson into implementing an overly harsh penalty--and bragging about it. Indeed, they may have succeeded in that, as Jackson commented the penalty was more severe than that which would have been ("justly") reached by arbitration. So, we've already got a theory that argues Microsoft is intentionally erring so as to exploit Jackson's emotions(exploits didn't begin with Winnuke!).
And if Jackson's ruling is overly excessive, then Microsoft has a better chance of winning an appeal. After a successful appeal, there will be pressure on the DoJ to leave Microsoft alone for a while in order to stop wasting taxpayer's money. This will allow Microsoft to maintain the practices they put in place simply to piss off Jackson, thereby becoming an even more evil empire. So to summarise, all Microsoft had to do to continue being evil is to be as evil as possible until Jackson's ruling.
Am I correct in understanding that Plan 9 is designed to use central servers (esp. file)? This seems rather antiquated when it can be assumed that all the workstations have hard disks.
I know Beowulf clusters are usually used for dedicated supercomputing, but don't they and Plan 9 come from similar philosophies?
Finally, the Introduction says "a remote 8½ application sees the mouse, bitblt, and consfiles for the window as usual in/dev; it does not know whether the files are local." To me this implies that if OpenGL were to be ported I could run Quake using my local workstation's video card but all the available computing power of the entire network.
Okay, in the case of houses I've seen the math done, so I know it's just barely not a good example of this, but I'll go for it anyway: presumably renting is cheaper than paying a mortage (otherwise it would be even more foolish than you suggest) so what if you took the extra money and invested it in the stock market? Only the desperate think that their house is also a real estate investment. Your house may go up in price, but so will everywhere you'd want to move. The only time this works is when you're moving to a cheaper dwelling or a different type that's in lower demand (although this is something the Baby Boomers may be doing fairly soon, their doing it will depress house prices and raise condo prices).
As for rent being tax detuctable, the very existence of income tax suggests that the government doesn't listen very hard to their economists.
What we need is a Frivilous Technology Patent Fund (TM)(R)(C) where people can use their donation to bid on what would be the most amusing patent to file. Then we write the proposal as Open Content and the Fund hires some lawyers to do their thing. Even if nothing ever happened, the creation of such an entity might get some news on the issue.
Of course we could also make a community effort to notify the Patent Office about previous art, but that seems like a never ending battle and not very much fun, either.
Maybe we should ask whether this is a case of life imitating art or art imitating life, ie: perhaps the computing industry just happens to magnify the changes going on in the rest of the world. eg: RMS keeps worrying about things like the SDMI for books. For that matter, as computers become a part of more and more things in the world, more and more things are going to be subject to the properties of computers.
It's also interesting that the first few posters interpret some of these things as being bad. They certainly could be, but they don't have to be. Renting everything will keep people from being locked into lifestyles. If geeks are leading this trend then, as a culture or cohort, we're becoming more flexible. Just as massive, old companies can't change, people who have paid off their mortage are unlikely to move.
It should be noted that Microsoft's favourite university for new employees, Waterloo, is in Canada. Many recently graduated Canadians would prefer to stay in Canada and therefore would work for less. Plus the fact that our social safety net would allow their employees take pay cuts (ie: same wages but in CDN$).
But the fact is, all the reasons people in this forum give why it would be a bad idea could be countered by the government. Microsoft would be such a boon to our economy that we'd bend over backwards to make them feel at home.
So how would I, as a CS student who's half way through an undergraduate degree, go about finding a mentor? When it comes to mentors, people seem to be into databases to hook people up -- but that seems artificial. How should I go out and wrangle my own?
The whole point of splitting the company rather than doing something else is that it's simple and won't require further government supervision. If Microsoft was only forced to release the code once, rather than make derivations open, then they'd change enough stuff in the next version that they could start pulling away from the pack. For that matter, is there enough comments for us to even be able to understand it? If Microsoft understood it, maybe they would fix all the bugs.:)
Personally, I think that splitting the company is better for Linux than opening up the code. Other than DirectX and the Wine project, most of the code is useless to us. But if the application company isn't tied to the OS company then we should expect to see Linux versions of Office and IE -- which would be the last step to widespread acceptance. (Who knows, maybe the new management would even review the Halloween memos and have a change of heart...)
I found myself feeling like neither "expert" did a good job of defending their OS. So as someone who uses Linux lots but Macs not if I can help it...
Installation: If the MacOS can't be installed then how can you comment on its installation? This is meaningless!
Interface: The bad part here was Rex's Rebuttal:
Linux can open more than just Mac and PC formats.
Rather than profiles we have accounts, need I go into their inherint superiority?
Can Sherlock do regular expressions?
Applications: Mac - the best that Microsoft has to offer; Linux - the best that the rest of the world has to offer.
Hardware Compatibility: The only meaningful comparison here would be to compare USB and support for other platform independent devices (PDAs, printers, etc.).
Internet Support: The only category that really makes sense: Mac - dumbed-down, easy to use; Linux - supreme power over time and space.
What really doesn't make sense is the criteria for the final decision. Linux is a rising star on the desktop, Macs are for niche markets and zealots.
As someone half way through a Computer Science degree, I'd be interested to know what people in the industry think about the various methods of formal training. What is the value of university degrees, college diplomas, and certifications (vendor-neutral or otherwise) for various positions? Even more complicated, what does a combination of these yield?
To relate this to my personal experience: Can I expect to get hired as a Linux sys-admin* with a BSc? How would my value change if I added a certification on top of that? What about graduate degrees?
(*) That's not particularily what I'm interested in doing, it just seems like the most likely example to get answered here.:)
So you're planning on spending however much it costs for this college certification course and then using that to get summer jobs to help pay for university? I haven't done the math, but it sounds like you'd be in less debt by skipping the certification and spend the time (and future summers) getting a job with the skills you have.
Wouldn't it be great if you could turn your computer into a console at the boot manager level? It could be a gaming virtual machine or something such that console chips could be designed to optimise it (and run it from ROM) but PCs could boot it as well. The problem is, we might end up with a web browsing operating system, as well. Now that consoles are creeping into PC space it's only a matter of time until there's an OS monopoly or robust standards.
As for the specific Linux distro, it'd be nice if I could take a 486 and set it up so that my 5-year-old brother (or grandmother, or whatever) could load emulators efficiently and easily -- all the games most people will ever need!
Potential Linux gamers should be wary that companies are supporting Linux out of financial viability rather than PR or code-improvement reasons. We'll start to feel like Mac users if the cross-platform games released on Linux are lacking in features, late, and buggy. A good example is Unreal Tournament
Tim Sweeny, head of the Unreal Tournament (UT) development team, is apparently a big fan of Linux and it seemed like the Linux UT port was going to get a big push, even after it was decided that including the small Linux portion on the CD would imply real tech support. The truth is, it runs on Linux, but not very well. Unlike Quake 3, for which the Linux version is a seperate purchase, UT is a toy for people running both Windows and Linux. There is no support whatsoever, patch releases come long after the Windows patches, the product is buggy, and doesn't demonstrate a good understanding of Linux philosophy (this is evident at the install phase for many reasons: it must be installed and run with the same owner, it uses Windows-style files and directories, etc.).
My point is that we have to demand that games are written (and patched) modularly so that they are equal across platforms.
How about being able to simulate a user? I know UseIt says that you don't need very many users to do testing, but most web pages can't afford to pay any, especially if they make a lot of revisions. At it's simplest form, the program would check that the fonts are big enough to read, none of the basic guidelines are violated (pop-ups, etc. check the questions for Jeff Zeldman for more ideas) and so on. Then, as the program progressed, it would watch users surf the web and try and figure out what kinds of things they did.
Do they usually click on the bullets or the words?
Do they bother scrolling down the page?
Do they ever use the reset buttons in forms>
This way you'd be not only studying users actions, but creating a program that would learn from them to either formulate rules about usability or simulate a user itself.
On the client side there are lots of places where current technology could be expounded on. Internet Explorer (and other Microsoft software) tries to implement some basic tricks like URL completion, automated form completion, menu optimisation, evil paperclips, etc. Any one of these could have an entire thesis devoted to optimising it.
Granted, all of these can be done with statistical models. If you're not so interested in the math, figure out what neural nets or evolving software would be optimal at.
A number of posters have pointed out "features" of your site which they don't approve of. Althought it would be interesting, there must be something better you can do during the interview than defend every one of your choices. Since your title page is of a Transitional DOCTYPE (but why not XHTML?), you obviously feel that many of your decisions were the lesser of two evils. Therefore, I ask you thus:
What do you think your site (and especially your code) will look like 6 months from now?
Will there still be so many compromises?
And what needs to happen before it can achieve the most optimistic state?
XHTML is (mostly?) backwards compatible because it's basically just well-formed HTML. If you're already using CSS then writing XHTML rather than HTML won't do much to cramp your style. If you're not: you should be! Using XHTML is like tabbing your code -- there's no reason not to and it might help you later on. Download HTML tidy to help you along the way.
I must say I feel the same way about XML. I've written DTDs and linked CSSs such that it displays nicely in IE5, but I'm not sure where this is leading. What we need is a database of DTDs so that instead of writing my own I'll try and make something that is compatible with someone else's. Obviously for a major project I can consistantly use a DTD interally, but for just random web docs there should be an Open Content repository.
And yes, I know about XML.ORG's list, but they're hardly RFCs.
What would people recommend for dial-in systems (modem support, PPP, email, etc.) averaging 8 megs of RAM, 250 MB harddrive? X-Windows isn't a high priority (but it would be nice) and if I were to do something like LFS, the parent Linux would have to be Live-CD or -Floppy. They'd be used primarily for software development and Internet use.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm quite sure that Linux NOW is not a distribution, but rather a protocal or application. Besides, why would the head of Debian leave to start another distribution? Please read the link.
And shame on all those moderators that moderated without reading the story!
Now I'm a big fan of the "university experience" myself; so much so that I went to a school (Trent) that was modeled on the Cambridge and Oxford system. But lots of students arrive every year that simply don't belong there. Perhaps everyone should be entitled to a post-secondary education, but that shouldn't be limited to the university atmosphere.
Colleges are always complaining that guidance counselors try and send everyone to university. Some of these people would get more satisfaction out of a concrete diploma rather than an abstract degree (while saving money, of course). High schools should be teaching critical thinking so that people shouldn't have to spend 4 specialised years getting it. On the other hand, there's many positions that would benefit from people with more abstract skills.
As much fun as the drinking and sex is, the actual lectures can be pretty damn interesting, from time to time.
That's short-sighted thinking. The technical degrees teach a lot of information that is based on recent developments. But philosophy students still study Plato*. What this means is that the skills taught in humanities are timeless. Therefore they should be better at adapting to massive paradigm shifts that send all the engineers back to school.
Also, law schools don't just want the undergraduate degrees to weed their applicant pool -- they could do that to a more satisfying degree in a single year of school. They require their applicants (and they must demonstrate this on the LSAT) to have some minimum level of critical thinking skills. The theory is that this is taught by every undergraduate course, no matter what subject you're critically thinking about.
And before you flame, I might note I'm currently pursuing a Computer Science & Philosophy joint-BSc. I urge everyone to do something similar whether fitting them both into an undergraduate degree, getting a college diploma, or just doing some in-depth reading on their own. I'm pretty confident that I could teach myself the content of my programming courses, but the mathematics and philosophy is what I'm in school for.
* Mind you, I'd love to study Babbage, but I'm forced to do it on my own time. :(
My biggest concern is that the system still has to keep flowing. Time must be a huge weighting to insure that the latest news is always on top. The problem is, the newest stuff hasn't been properly moderated yet which means I can have my news fast xor good. Perhaps if the stories were segregated by day it would aliviate that somewhat.
Still, it is more complicated and more critical that comment moderation so I can see why the staff hasn't implemented it yet (never mind the fact that it would make /. almost run itself).
No, it seems as if I am mistake. My apologies.
Now don't get me wrong, I think that article moderation should be debated from time to time, but this case is not a good example of it. This article is dated today on rootprompt itself and is posted at the top of kuro5hin today as well. It seems unlikely that all three sources would be mistaken.
So then why even talk about Plan 9 servers? Isn't ever PC on the network both a server and a client unless you want a dedicated machine for more load (or space) than the workstations can handle together.
The most rational explanation for Microsoft's behavior has generally been that they wanted to goad Judge Jackson into implementing an overly harsh penalty--and bragging about it. Indeed, they may have succeeded in that, as Jackson commented the penalty was more severe than that which would have been ("justly") reached by arbitration. So, we've already got a theory that argues Microsoft is intentionally erring so as to exploit Jackson's emotions(exploits didn't begin with Winnuke!).
And if Jackson's ruling is overly excessive, then Microsoft has a better chance of winning an appeal. After a successful appeal, there will be pressure on the DoJ to leave Microsoft alone for a while in order to stop wasting taxpayer's money. This will allow Microsoft to maintain the practices they put in place simply to piss off Jackson, thereby becoming an even more evil empire. So to summarise, all Microsoft had to do to continue being evil is to be as evil as possible until Jackson's ruling.
Am I correct in understanding that Plan 9 is designed to use central servers (esp. file)? This seems rather antiquated when it can be assumed that all the workstations have hard disks.
I know Beowulf clusters are usually used for dedicated supercomputing, but don't they and Plan 9 come from similar philosophies?
Finally, the Introduction says "a remote 8½ application sees the mouse, bitblt, and consfiles for the window as usual in /dev; it does not know whether the files are local." To me this implies that if OpenGL were to be ported I could run Quake using my local workstation's video card but all the available computing power of the entire network.
Okay, in the case of houses I've seen the math done, so I know it's just barely not a good example of this, but I'll go for it anyway: presumably renting is cheaper than paying a mortage (otherwise it would be even more foolish than you suggest) so what if you took the extra money and invested it in the stock market? Only the desperate think that their house is also a real estate investment. Your house may go up in price, but so will everywhere you'd want to move. The only time this works is when you're moving to a cheaper dwelling or a different type that's in lower demand (although this is something the Baby Boomers may be doing fairly soon, their doing it will depress house prices and raise condo prices).
As for rent being tax detuctable, the very existence of income tax suggests that the government doesn't listen very hard to their economists.
What we need is a Frivilous Technology Patent Fund (TM)(R)(C) where people can use their donation to bid on what would be the most amusing patent to file. Then we write the proposal as Open Content and the Fund hires some lawyers to do their thing. Even if nothing ever happened, the creation of such an entity might get some news on the issue.
Of course we could also make a community effort to notify the Patent Office about previous art, but that seems like a never ending battle and not very much fun, either.
Maybe we should ask whether this is a case of life imitating art or art imitating life, ie: perhaps the computing industry just happens to magnify the changes going on in the rest of the world. eg: RMS keeps worrying about things like the SDMI for books. For that matter, as computers become a part of more and more things in the world, more and more things are going to be subject to the properties of computers.
It's also interesting that the first few posters interpret some of these things as being bad. They certainly could be, but they don't have to be. Renting everything will keep people from being locked into lifestyles. If geeks are leading this trend then, as a culture or cohort, we're becoming more flexible. Just as massive, old companies can't change, people who have paid off their mortage are unlikely to move.
It should be noted that Microsoft's favourite university for new employees, Waterloo, is in Canada. Many recently graduated Canadians would prefer to stay in Canada and therefore would work for less. Plus the fact that our social safety net would allow their employees take pay cuts (ie: same wages but in CDN$).
But the fact is, all the reasons people in this forum give why it would be a bad idea could be countered by the government. Microsoft would be such a boon to our economy that we'd bend over backwards to make them feel at home.
So how would I, as a CS student who's half way through an undergraduate degree, go about finding a mentor? When it comes to mentors, people seem to be into databases to hook people up -- but that seems artificial. How should I go out and wrangle my own?
The whole point of splitting the company rather than doing something else is that it's simple and won't require further government supervision. If Microsoft was only forced to release the code once, rather than make derivations open, then they'd change enough stuff in the next version that they could start pulling away from the pack. For that matter, is there enough comments for us to even be able to understand it? If Microsoft understood it, maybe they would fix all the bugs. :)
Personally, I think that splitting the company is better for Linux than opening up the code. Other than DirectX and the Wine project, most of the code is useless to us. But if the application company isn't tied to the OS company then we should expect to see Linux versions of Office and IE -- which would be the last step to widespread acceptance. (Who knows, maybe the new management would even review the Halloween memos and have a change of heart...)
I found myself feeling like neither "expert" did a good job of defending their OS. So as someone who uses Linux lots but Macs not if I can help it...
What really doesn't make sense is the criteria for the final decision. Linux is a rising star on the desktop, Macs are for niche markets and zealots.
A much better CNet article: Find Your Perfect OS.
As someone half way through a Computer Science degree, I'd be interested to know what people in the industry think about the various methods of formal training. What is the value of university degrees, college diplomas, and certifications (vendor-neutral or otherwise) for various positions? Even more complicated, what does a combination of these yield?
To relate this to my personal experience: Can I expect to get hired as a Linux sys-admin* with a BSc? How would my value change if I added a certification on top of that? What about graduate degrees?
(*) That's not particularily what I'm interested in doing, it just seems like the most likely example to get answered here. :)
So you're planning on spending however much it costs for this college certification course and then using that to get summer jobs to help pay for university? I haven't done the math, but it sounds like you'd be in less debt by skipping the certification and spend the time (and future summers) getting a job with the skills you have.
Wouldn't it be great if you could turn your computer into a console at the boot manager level? It could be a gaming virtual machine or something such that console chips could be designed to optimise it (and run it from ROM) but PCs could boot it as well. The problem is, we might end up with a web browsing operating system, as well. Now that consoles are creeping into PC space it's only a matter of time until there's an OS monopoly or robust standards.
As for the specific Linux distro, it'd be nice if I could take a 486 and set it up so that my 5-year-old brother (or grandmother, or whatever) could load emulators efficiently and easily -- all the games most people will ever need!
Potential Linux gamers should be wary that companies are supporting Linux out of financial viability rather than PR or code-improvement reasons. We'll start to feel like Mac users if the cross-platform games released on Linux are lacking in features, late, and buggy. A good example is Unreal Tournament
Tim Sweeny, head of the Unreal Tournament (UT) development team, is apparently a big fan of Linux and it seemed like the Linux UT port was going to get a big push, even after it was decided that including the small Linux portion on the CD would imply real tech support. The truth is, it runs on Linux, but not very well. Unlike Quake 3, for which the Linux version is a seperate purchase, UT is a toy for people running both Windows and Linux. There is no support whatsoever, patch releases come long after the Windows patches, the product is buggy, and doesn't demonstrate a good understanding of Linux philosophy (this is evident at the install phase for many reasons: it must be installed and run with the same owner, it uses Windows-style files and directories, etc.).
My point is that we have to demand that games are written (and patched) modularly so that they are equal across platforms.
How about being able to simulate a user? I know UseIt says that you don't need very many users to do testing, but most web pages can't afford to pay any, especially if they make a lot of revisions. At it's simplest form, the program would check that the fonts are big enough to read, none of the basic guidelines are violated (pop-ups, etc. check the questions for Jeff Zeldman for more ideas) and so on. Then, as the program progressed, it would watch users surf the web and try and figure out what kinds of things they did.
This way you'd be not only studying users actions, but creating a program that would learn from them to either formulate rules about usability or simulate a user itself.
On the client side there are lots of places where current technology could be expounded on. Internet Explorer (and other Microsoft software) tries to implement some basic tricks like URL completion, automated form completion, menu optimisation, evil paperclips, etc. Any one of these could have an entire thesis devoted to optimising it.
Granted, all of these can be done with statistical models. If you're not so interested in the math, figure out what neural nets or evolving software would be optimal at.
A number of posters have pointed out "features" of your site which they don't approve of. Althought it would be interesting, there must be something better you can do during the interview than defend every one of your choices. Since your title page is of a Transitional DOCTYPE (but why not XHTML?), you obviously feel that many of your decisions were the lesser of two evils. Therefore, I ask you thus:
XHTML is (mostly?) backwards compatible because it's basically just well-formed HTML. If you're already using CSS then writing XHTML rather than HTML won't do much to cramp your style. If you're not: you should be! Using XHTML is like tabbing your code -- there's no reason not to and it might help you later on. Download HTML tidy to help you along the way.
I must say I feel the same way about XML. I've written DTDs and linked CSSs such that it displays nicely in IE5, but I'm not sure where this is leading. What we need is a database of DTDs so that instead of writing my own I'll try and make something that is compatible with someone else's. Obviously for a major project I can consistantly use a DTD interally, but for just random web docs there should be an Open Content repository.
And yes, I know about XML.ORG's list, but they're hardly RFCs.
What about the other part of this question: "Are the existing open content licenses practical?"
What would people recommend for dial-in systems (modem support, PPP, email, etc.) averaging 8 megs of RAM, 250 MB harddrive? X-Windows isn't a high priority (but it would be nice) and if I were to do something like LFS, the parent Linux would have to be Live-CD or -Floppy. They'd be used primarily for software development and Internet use.
Suggestions I've heard so far:
- Vector Linux
- Linux From Sratch
- Debian
Comments?