Once this generation of coders falls away (and they will) then Linux will lose its support in the forms of coders. Once the Linux source becomes obsolete, Linux is dead. The only reason these.bombs were so popular is because it allowed the coders to write Linux programs and earn money. Now that it's over, so is Linux.
Interesting point, but not realistic.
A few things..
There will be another generation of college coders. You're not that special.:)
Dot-bombs didn't only run on Linux and you can do more than just run a webserver with it.
There's a *HUGE* user base familiar with Linux
There's lots of apps.
HW companies have written drivers for Linux so that they can sell their products to Linux users.
Many gov'ts are/will be using Linux.
A lot of contributions to the Linux source code came out of someone(s) just wanting Linux to do a specific task.
The Mighty Tux of Karma will cast spells of guilt upon shops that don't buy at least one or two distros.:)
...and so on. (Hey! Add your own!)
At the end of the day, (IMHO) software is not just about making money, it's about making things work. Linux works in lot's of places and I don't see it going away. Practicality will overcome the money issue.
But even when writers are caught and brought to trial, the legal system often doesn't know what to do with them.
Pah! I know what to do with them. Charge the writer of a virus/worm for time the Admin puts in to fix or block their poisoned program. If the virus/worm writer doesn't have the money, then the Admin will charge through violence to where one hit upside the virus/worm writer's skull with a 2"x4" will be exchangable to 15 minutes of the Admin's time that could have been better spent.
Sorry to rant, but virus/worm copycats^Wwriters really get on my nerves, especially when I could be spending that time doing something with my friends, instead of telling sendmail to block out the latest "Melissa" clones.
DISCLAIMER: I'm not trying to sell this program, just sharing info on a product I am currently working with.
I've been setting up Appgen's beancounter software. Can't say much about it, because I'm currently installing, importing files, and configuring it (I'm working on a client/server version), but the client can run on Win**, Mac, Linux, and Unix (*BSD, Solaris, SCO. YMMV). The server program runs on *nix (even on things like AIX, RS/6000, AT&T, and NCR) and NT/2000. If you want to run it just on one workstation, you can do that too. The Linux server program is not the prettiest thing (vt100 based), but it takes up very little of your precious resources. The Linux client program for KDE and Gnome is *VERY* nice looking and easy to work with (though I don't know squat about accounting). It could convince people that Linux might just have a place on a non-tech's desktop. I was impressed and I'm not very easily impressed.
It's not open source in the GNU sense, but it does come with the full sources and a C tool kit. I didn't have to sign an NDA, so make of it what you will.
Check out http://www.appgen.com. They're a *very* Linux friendly company and actually have tech support that doesn't freak out when you say,"Linux".
btw, It's not nearly as expensive as some beancounter programs I've seen out there.
High-end audio components, such as a 24-bit, 96kHz Burr Brown DAC, deliver unprecedented audio quality from a compressed home audio player. 115dB channel separation 101.5dB S/N ratio 0.002% THD+N +0, -0.227dB frequency response (20Hz-20kHz)
...which will do more for sound than your usual Soundblaster. Hook up your PC to your stereo. Play a CD on your PC. Now play a CD on your regular CD player. Notice the difference?
HTH, HAND.:)
One thing that would (IMHO) *highly* cut back on M$'s monopoly would be for the DOJ to make M$ open up their formats on the Office products. I can't count the times that I've told people to send me a document in text-only format because I'm not using MS Office and Star Office might or might not convert it properly.
If M$ is going to get any fair competition, they need to open their formats on Word and Excel so people are not forced to use MS Office if they have to work with those formats. That would be a big boost for the developers of Abiword, WordPerfect for *nix, Gnumeric, Star Office, etc. They wouldn't have to spend so much time on converters. They could spend their time making great office programs that work with anything someone sends you, and make the office application software battle a fair fight.
Whilst it's really cool to keep up the archives of usenet, but people can also post on these ancient threads. Look here and you'll see what I mean. An article posted on 10 Jun 1992 that is still getting replies. Damn, it's hard enough to kill meandering threads as it is already.
The only reason They (Sun, AOL, etc.) are touting Open Standards is because they're getting their butt kicked by M$. The only way they seem to be marketing Liberty is through anti-M$ measures by saying things like..
"It would be a positive step if Microsoft would join Liberty as well," the AOL spokesman said. "If they chose to do so, it would indicate they were moving away from leveraging their monopoly to control this new generation of services."
And using M$'s monopoly as an excuse to point fingers at M$, and say, "We must stop the evil. People, rally with us" as if Sun, AOL, etc. were the Good Guys. But the fact is that They would do (and have done) the same monopolistic practices if They had the chance. The only reason They're bouncing about with Open Standards is because if they didn't, they'd be lumped with the Bad Guys (M$) and they're gonna juice all the PR by saying they're going to keep Liberty open.
Libery will just follow open standards until they have Passport on the ropes. Then all your base are belong to Sun/AOL.
I like the project I'm working on. I want to share the source code, because I think a lot of other people might apply it in groovy ways that don't suggest themselves to me."
</snip>
While you're at it, do you think RMS will let me GPL this?:)
Ahhh, but they have, ye who hath too much faith in the concept of common sense being a very common thing.:)
DISCLAIMER: This is not a pro/anti gun rant. Just making a point.
Check here and here and here to read about when the gov't filed suit against gun manufacturers. Even the NAACP and the state of California have filed suit against gun manufacturers. New York successfully won a case. Yes, these are technically murder based because they are blaming gun companies for murders that people commit.
If the powers that be will go after powerful (i.e. lotsa $) gun manufacturers, you can be certain that they'll have no problem going after software developers and anyone that helps them. (*Cough* Dimitri Sklyarov *cough* 2600, *cough* DeCSS, ad infinitum) And they'll probably be villianized by the media as terrorists too. Who knows?
No dramatization here, just the facts and a natural assumption that the people working on the "Cybercrime Treaty" do not have our best interests at heart.
1. Each Party shall adopt such legislative and other measures as may be necessary to establish as criminal offences under its domestic law, when committed intentionally, aiding or abetting the commission of any of the offences established in accordance with Articles 2 - 10 of the present Convention with intent that such offence be committed.
Great. Now software developers that make things like Nmap, tcpdump, portscanner, sniffit, and other security tools will get jailed or fined out of existence and charged with "aiding and abetting" just because J. Random Cracker ran their software to 0\/\/3n3d someone's unsecured box. You just *know* some lawyer can't wait to make a bunch of money^W^W^W^W^Wuse this little bit of legislation to put people behind bars.
...doing appropriate substitution for your own email address, of course. It would probably also be useful to include an explanation in case someone doesn't have JavaScript enabled.
Here's some more cute ways to mung up your email address...
xeno@yourpants.domainname.com
(take off yourpants to email me)
or just put this in your.sig
%>mail `echo xeFOOo@domaiFOOFOOame.com|sed s/FOO/n/g`
Of course, if people can't figure these out, you probably don't want to be getting email from them.
Here in Canada I go to Radio Shack to get some batteries and they want my mailing address to send me their retarded flyers. I'm like, no. (Unless I'm desparate for some fire-starting paper!).
You're missing out. Just give them a fake address. For example...
Gonzo MacGuilicutty
1313 Mockingbird Lane
Beverly Hills, CA 90210
If enough people do this, then Radio Shack (You've got questions? We've got blank stares.) will discover that they're blowing a lot of money on sending out brocures to fake addressen. The people that Radio Shack sells their address lists to will be kinda pissed off when they discover that so many of the addressen are pooched. Eventually a clue might be imparted to them when it hits them harder in the pocket book. So, c'mon everybody, give Radio Shack those fake addressen.
"On two occasions I have been asked (by members of Parliament), 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question."
Slashdot Mirror
...that this is going to eventually turn DVD players into another WinModem-ish hardware problem.
I'm too disgusted to go on a rant.... sigh.
sigh... on second thought, let's *start* with the school system and fix business later.
/. in years.
Now that it the most insightful thing I've heard on
Interesting point, but not realistic.
A few things..
There will be another generation of college coders. You're not that special. :)
Dot-bombs didn't only run on Linux and you can do more than just run a webserver with it.
There's a *HUGE* user base familiar with Linux
There's lots of apps.
HW companies have written drivers for Linux so that they can sell their products to Linux users.
Many gov'ts are/will be using Linux.
A lot of contributions to the Linux source code came out of someone(s) just wanting Linux to do a specific task.
The Mighty Tux of Karma will cast spells of guilt upon shops that don't buy at least one or two distros. :)
...and so on. (Hey! Add your own!)
At the end of the day, (IMHO) software is not just about making money, it's about making things work. Linux works in lot's of places and I don't see it going away. Practicality will overcome the money issue.
But even when writers are caught and brought to trial, the legal system often doesn't know what to do with them.
Pah! I know what to do with them. Charge the writer of a virus/worm for time the Admin puts in to fix or block their poisoned program. If the virus/worm writer doesn't have the money, then the Admin will charge through violence to where one hit upside the virus/worm writer's skull with a 2"x4" will be exchangable to 15 minutes of the Admin's time that could have been better spent.
Sorry to rant, but virus/worm copycats^Wwriters really get on my nerves, especially when I could be spending that time doing something with my friends, instead of telling sendmail to block out the latest "Melissa" clones.
Maybe it's just the 5% of pr0n sites that they don't have passwords to?
:^)
DISCLAIMER: I'm not trying to sell this program, just sharing info on a product I am currently working with.
,"Linux".
I've been setting up Appgen's beancounter software. Can't say much about it, because I'm currently installing, importing files, and configuring it (I'm working on a client/server version), but the client can run on Win**, Mac, Linux, and Unix (*BSD, Solaris, SCO. YMMV). The server program runs on *nix (even on things like AIX, RS/6000, AT&T, and NCR) and NT/2000. If you want to run it just on one workstation, you can do that too. The Linux server program is not the prettiest thing (vt100 based), but it takes up very little of your precious resources. The Linux client program for KDE and Gnome is *VERY* nice looking and easy to work with (though I don't know squat about accounting). It could convince people that Linux might just have a place on a non-tech's desktop. I was impressed and I'm not very easily impressed.
It's not open source in the GNU sense, but it does come with the full sources and a C tool kit. I didn't have to sign an NDA, so make of it what you will.
Check out http://www.appgen.com. They're a *very* Linux friendly company and actually have tech support that doesn't freak out when you say
btw, It's not nearly as expensive as some beancounter programs I've seen out there.
Think "hiss". S:N
High-end audio components, such as a 24-bit, 96kHz Burr Brown DAC, deliver unprecedented audio quality from a compressed home audio player. 115dB channel separation 101.5dB S/N ratio 0.002% THD+N +0, -0.227dB frequency response (20Hz-20kHz)
:)
...which will do more for sound than your usual Soundblaster. Hook up your PC to your stereo. Play a CD on your PC. Now play a CD on your regular CD player. Notice the difference?
HTH, HAND.
Thank you, Sir. May I have another!?!
If M$ is going to get any fair competition, they need to open their formats on Word and Excel so people are not forced to use MS Office if they have to work with those formats. That would be a big boost for the developers of Abiword, WordPerfect for *nix, Gnumeric, Star Office, etc. They wouldn't have to spend so much time on converters. They could spend their time making great office programs that work with anything someone sends you, and make the office application software battle a fair fight.
Whilst it's really cool to keep up the archives of usenet, but people can also post on these ancient threads. Look here and you'll see what I mean. An article posted on 10 Jun 1992 that is still getting replies. Damn, it's hard enough to kill meandering threads as it is already.
Yeah. They should have executed it on Jan 30, 1998
Doesn't Sun already have a blade? Look out! Here come's the landsharks.
<aol>
Me too!
</aol>
Rant: Sounds like bullsh*t to me.
The only reason They (Sun, AOL, etc.) are touting Open Standards is because they're getting their butt kicked by M$. The only way they seem to be marketing Liberty is through anti-M$ measures by saying things like..
"It would be a positive step if Microsoft would join Liberty as well," the AOL spokesman said. "If they chose to do so, it would indicate they were moving away from leveraging their monopoly to control this new generation of services."
And using M$'s monopoly as an excuse to point fingers at M$, and say, "We must stop the evil. People, rally with us" as if Sun, AOL, etc. were the Good Guys. But the fact is that They would do (and have done) the same monopolistic practices if They had the chance. The only reason They're bouncing about with Open Standards is because if they didn't, they'd be lumped with the Bad Guys (M$) and they're gonna juice all the PR by saying they're going to keep Liberty open.
Libery will just follow open standards until they have Passport on the ropes. Then all your base are belong to Sun/AOL.
<snip>
:)
"Hello, RMS.
I like the project I'm working on. I want to share the source code, because I think a lot of other people might apply it in groovy ways that don't suggest themselves to me."
</snip>
While you're at it, do you think RMS will let me GPL this?
#include <iostream.h>
void main()
{
cout << "Hello World";
cout << endl;
}
You ever try to work on a Miller induced hangover? :)
Ahhh, but they have, ye who hath too much faith in the concept of common sense being a very common thing. :)
DISCLAIMER: This is not a pro/anti gun rant. Just making a point.
Check here and here and here to read about when the gov't filed suit against gun manufacturers. Even the NAACP and the state of California have filed suit against gun manufacturers. New York successfully won a case. Yes, these are technically murder based because they are blaming gun companies for murders that people commit.
If the powers that be will go after powerful (i.e. lotsa $) gun manufacturers, you can be certain that they'll have no problem going after software developers and anyone that helps them. (*Cough* Dimitri Sklyarov *cough* 2600, *cough* DeCSS, ad infinitum) And they'll probably be villianized by the media as terrorists too. Who knows?
No dramatization here, just the facts and a natural assumption that the people working on the "Cybercrime Treaty" do not have our best interests at heart.
I'm sure those little SRBs will go better and be less hung over if they're given some decent beer instead of some swill like Miluakee's Beast.
I don't like where this is going.
Article 11 - Attempt and aiding or abetting
1. Each Party shall adopt such legislative and other measures as may be necessary to establish as criminal offences under its domestic law, when committed intentionally, aiding or abetting the commission of any of the offences established in accordance with Articles 2 - 10 of the present Convention with intent that such offence be committed.
Great. Now software developers that make things like Nmap, tcpdump, portscanner, sniffit, and other security tools will get jailed or fined out of existence and charged with "aiding and abetting" just because J. Random Cracker ran their software to 0\/\/3n3d someone's unsecured box. You just *know* some lawyer can't wait to make a bunch of money^W^W^W^W^Wuse this little bit of legislation to put people behind bars.
javascript:window.location='mailto:tda'+'vis@tda'+ 'vis.org'
.sig
...doing appropriate substitution for your own email address, of course. It would probably also be useful to include an explanation in case someone doesn't have JavaScript enabled.
Here's some more cute ways to mung up your email address...
xeno@yourpants.domainname.com
(take off yourpants to email me)
or just put this in your
%>mail `echo xeFOOo@domaiFOOFOOame.com|sed s/FOO/n/g`
Of course, if people can't figure these out, you probably don't want to be getting email from them.
Here in Canada I go to Radio Shack to get some batteries and they want my mailing address to send me their retarded flyers. I'm like, no. (Unless I'm desparate for some fire-starting paper!).
You're missing out. Just give them a fake address. For example...
Gonzo MacGuilicutty
1313 Mockingbird Lane
Beverly Hills, CA 90210
If enough people do this, then Radio Shack (You've got questions? We've got blank stares.) will discover that they're blowing a lot of money on sending out brocures to fake addressen. The people that Radio Shack sells their address lists to will be kinda pissed off when they discover that so many of the addressen are pooched. Eventually a clue might be imparted to them when it hits them harder in the pocket book. So, c'mon everybody, give Radio Shack those fake addressen.
Do I get 70-something virgins and 70-something wives to hand-feed me grapes and whatnot?
I don't think I'd want a virgin that was in her 70s.
:)
...but will they let him sing?
...I think of my favourite quote from him.
"On two occasions I have been asked (by members of Parliament), 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question."
Intel 4004 Turns 30
:P
from the middle-aged dept.
I'm 33 and that ain't middle-aged. I take offence!