This from the Progeny website (http://www.progeny.com/archive/debian/):
The primary motivation for this decision is our desire for convergence with Debian proper. From a technical perspective, nearly all of the features we introduced in Progeny Debian have found or are finding their way into Debian, and it is thus becoming increasingly unnecessary for us to continue investing the resources required to maintain a separate "Progeny enhanced" version.
From a business perspective, our customers consistently ask for Debian, not Progeny Debian, and while Progeny Debian is technically just a "release" of Debian (akin to "potato" or "woody" from the Debian project), the appearance of maintaining a separate or "forked" version is a liability given our company's shift away from a mass-market product and service focus and toward consulting and other professional services.
I read this to mean that the "standard" Debian distro is sufficiently good that a separate product is not necessary. Rather than being a sign of impending doom for Debian, I see this as a sign of its strength.
Is it, by any chance, on the Island of Misfit Toys?
Defining globalization is an important first step
on
Defining Globalism
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
. . . to any meaningful debate on the subject. Those who are in favor of globalization seem to define it in very different terms than those who support it. This is an issue that those who have protested at recent WTO meetings have failed to adequately address. They have successfully conveyed their message that "globalization is bad," but without further clarification, this will strike different audiences as either self-evident or as an absurdity, since "globalization" means entirely different things to different groups of people. If you take it to mean the exploitation of indigenous peoples by large multinational corporations, then of course it's bad. But if you take it to mean greater mutual understanding among people of different nations, it is long overdue. The problem is, globalization can, but does not necessarily, encompass all these things, and a lot more.
Globalization may well be inevitable, as Katz correctly points out, but what form it will take is yet to be determined. Therefore, rather than getting into a shouting match over whether globalization is Good or Bad, it would be much more productive to discuss how to take advantage of the opportunities that globalization presents us while avoiding the the dangers it presents. This is the challenge for our age.
QUESTION: It appears to me that the open source movement is gaining momentum, and as I understand it the key to success of a software product involves efficiently building an ecosystem of developers and users, resellers, and so forth. Doesn't the open source model a more efficient paradigm for building such a community around your products, and isn't perhaps Microsoft maybe on the wrong side of that trend of long-term?
MR. GATES: Let me start out, really the reason that you see open source there at all is because we came in and said there should be a platform that's identical with millions and millions of machines, and the bios of that should be open to everybody to use, and all the extensibility should be there. And so it was very predictable that once we had gotten the PC going, and going and gotten hundreds of millions of machines out there, that it had always been sort of free software and the universities would flourish and there would be more of that. We certainly accept free software as part of the software ecosystem. In fact, there's a very virtuous cycle where people do free things, some people find that adequate, sometimes companies will take that work and turn it into commercial products, those companies will hire people, pay taxes. And so you see the free software and the commercial software existing together.
There is a particular approach that breaks the cycle called the GPL that is not worth getting into today, but I don't think there is much awareness about how so-called free software foundations designed that to break that cycle.
In terms of getting people excited about software and building communities around them, yes, that is a key to success. Nobody has done that more effectively than we have with Windows. Are there ways that we can do that better? Are there aspects of this where we're actually learning from all our different competitors out there? I think it's fair to say yes.
In the pre-software vision is that there would be no jobs in the software industry, there would be no testers, no engineers, no taxes paid, or anything of that notion. So I certainly don't agree with the full sort of free software foundation view that there should be no jobs in this area, and that the kind of commercial advances and risk taking that we've been able to do you can't get that, you can't get things like speech recognition on a tablet computer coming out of that kind of a paradigm. You can get things that follow along, you can get some smaller software, and so we embraced the idea of the free software paradigm and the commercial software paradigm moving forward in really a self-reinforcing way.
MR. BALLMER: I just want to add one thing, echo what Bill said, but encourage you to go to our web site. If there's a key learning for us, we can't have free software, it's kind of inconsistent with the goals of most people in the room. We recognize it, it probably doesn't fit in most of these people's mind's eye, so we're not going to embrace that. But there is something about the way the community works to support itself which is brilliant, and which we've done many good things, but we think we've seen some good things sort of in the Linux, et cetera, world, and I encourage you to go up to Microsoft.com and check out our community areas. It's an area where we have sort of massively mobilized. It's still in the early phases, but we are massively mobilizing to try to stimulate communities, support communities, and really, if you will, borrow one from their playbook.
Re:What a great idea!
on
Palm OS Spinoff
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Now if we could only convince Microsoft to do the same thing!
Or better yet, if we could only convince Apple to do the same thing! This would free Apple's OS division to aggressively market their products to all OEMs. Imagine if all the owners of x86 boxes out there had the option to install OSX instead of Windows.
I know this has been debated before, but I still think it makes sense.
To date the startup has received $50,000 in venture capital funding. The money came from Fast Angels Ventures, a venture firm created by the former CEO of Beyond.com, Mark Breier, who sits on the MultiDigit board.
Sounds kinda kinky. I would think one digit would be enough for most people.
Go ahead, mod me down! It's Friday, so I don't care!
This was clearly the work of a disgruntled former employee. Upset because he lost his job, Clippy wrote the letters, knowing that the fraud would be discovered and that Microsoft would get blamed. Revenge is sweet.
Getting a ticket for being on a nude beach,
where nobody at all is complaining, can make
you a "Sex Offender", no different in certain
eyes than if you raped their 5 year old daughter.
Why on earth would you get a ticket just for being on a nude beach? The only reason I can think of is that the "nude beach" is in a location where public nudity is illegal. In that case, it's not really a "nude beach" at all, is it? It's just somewhere where a bunch of people decided to take their clothes off.
Maybe you meant to write "being nude on a beach" instead of "being on a nude beach"?
Now then, if your point is that public nudity should be legal, or that nude beaches should be legal, or that public nudity should not be classified as a sex crime, well, that's a different issue.
[I] wonder if this is another step in the direction of Jurassic Park meets the Terminator . ..
Another step? You mean this is the latest in a long line of attempts to build robotic dinosaurs to extirminate humanity, and the trend has escaped my attention until now?
Making it difficult to use is one thing. Making it illegal is another.
Consider the WINE project. They've had moderate success getting Microsoft Office to run on Linux. Now suppose the folks at Redmond put a clause in their licence stating that, even if I pay them good money for a full version of Word, I can't use it unless I've also paid someone for a proprietary OS?
I'd like to see the Justice Department's response to that!
I can see how a company has the right to put clauses in their software license that restrict how I use their software. But what gives them the right to tell me I can't use their software if I also choose to run the software of some other company whose business practices they don't care for?
Imagine the reverse scenario. Could I write proprietary software, and restrict its use to proprietary OSes? I think not.
About the article, but offtopic.
on
IT Unions?
·
· Score: 1
It seemed odd that the article featured the same graph twice, each time with a different title --"U.S. Union Membership" the first time, and "U.S. Union Member Trends" the second time.
The Net has, for the first time in contemporary history, given individuals the freedom to explore sex and sexuality. . ..
Where were you during the '70s, man??? Have you never heard of the "sexual revolution"?? (Not that I was there, but at least I've heard tales.)
The Net is revolutionary in many ways, but people explored sexuality with freedom, and often with anonymity, long before the word "personal computer" ceased to be an oxymoron. Let's acknowledge the revolutionary nature of the Internet, but let's not exaggerate it ad absurdium.
Your arguments only make sense if you think that the sole purpose of evolution is to produce a super-human that has no physical limitations whatsoever. We can't see in the dark? Blame it on the shortcomings of evolution. We can't leap over tall buildings in a single bound? Blame it on the shortcomings of nature.
Name ONE problem on this planet that is the result of the poor workings of evolution. Before you answer, ask yourself: Is it a problem for life on this planet, or is it a problem for human beings? Is it a problem in the sense that the continued existence of our species is threatened, or is it a minor inconvenience? So I have to use glasses to improve my vision. Big deal. I don't see that as a threat to life on earth.
I am not a mystical tree hugger. Mother nature can be a cold-hearted bitch at times. Evolution does not favor any one species. But here we are, the product of evolution, using electric lights and computers and all sorts of neat stuff. Evolution is responsible for designing these wonderful brains in our heads. So it took a few billion years to get here? So what.
I'm not saying we should not, under any circumstances, create new life forms. I am saying that when we do it we should have a better reason than the fact that we need an interesting diversion. We should make damn sure we are not the ones being short-sighted. When the being with the neon green skin develops a horrible skin disease and dies a painful death, what will we say to asuage it? "Oops. My bad."???
The ability to create new life is the ultimate tool. With it, we become gods. There is a lot of responsibility that comes with that job description. Before we sign up, let's just make sure we think it over first.
Is there any thought or logic behind this phrase, or did you just think it sounded cool? Nature has given birth to myriad creatures of nearly infinite diversity, able to endure in nearly every climate found on the planet. Species come and go, but life endures. What, exactly, is it that you find so inadequate?
I can think of nothing more short-sighted than humans using a "genetic compiler" to create living beings with "cool" features such as neon green skin for no greater purpose than to provide an "interesting diversion." When we play with fire, we must do so with the greatest caution.
Nature sees the long term in ways you and I can only begin to imagine. In nature's view, we humans are expendable. Nature has all the time in the world. She can afford to wait.
The time of the splashdown will be 2001-03-21 14:58:26. The location will be 13317'26" E, 3954'40" S. My T-shirt will only become comfortable after it has been washed 11 times.
These are neither guesses nor predictions. They are expressions of my will. I will make it all come to pass.
How come the Pope refuses to integrate my patches to the Book of Exodus into the main kernel tree? Could it have anything to do with the kernel fork that occurred back in the 16th century? And how does this affect my plans to port the Book of Job to the Therevada Buddhist architecture?
Seriously, this is idiotic.
No one is forced to release software under the GPL. No one's intellectual property has been stolen. If you want to keep your goodies to yourself, no one is stopping you. No one was ever prevented from innovating by anyone in the Open Source movement.
This is the lowest level of attack: empty name-calling and appeals to irrational fears. Next they'll hold up a sheet of paper and say "I have in my hand a list of 107 known Communists in the Open Source Movement."
Perhaps the company in question would be doing better financially if they spent less time keeping track of comments by former employees and more time doing actual work.
How to improve the bottom line? Fire everyone in the "Espionnage Department." Your shareholders will thank you for it.
Yes, it will put miners out of work. New technology always puts some people out of work. Far fewer people today are employed as stable hands and farriers (blacksmiths that shoe horses) than before the introduction of the automobile.
The question is, given that certain jobs will be made obsolete, what should be done about it? If the head honchos at the mining companies are enlightened and benevolent, they will provide job training for the displaced miners. However, if companies' treatment of miners in the past is any indication of things to come, most miners will likely be left to fend for themselves. That is unfortunate. But now that the new technology is here, there's no going back.
They seem to be aggressively postioning themselves as the 'only' Linux distro to be worthy of consideration by companies.
What's wrong with them aggressively marketing their product? What would you rather have them do? Print a disclaimer on the front of the box, reading, "We think our distro is o.k., but other distros may be just as good or better."???
They are, after all, trying to make money, and that is a Good Thing.
I'm all for everyone, from Red Hat to Debian to tomsrtbt, each marketing their distro as aggressively as possible. More aggressive marketing = more people getting into Linux = more fun for all of us.
Some group will try to assert that Greenland isn't really a continent.
Wait. Greenland isn't a continent??? But it looks so much bigger than Australia on my map!!!
Seriously, it doesn't matter if people call it a planet or not. It's still there, and it will continue to orbit the sun for the forseeable future. This is not news.
Now we can finally learn how many of those annoying hidden goatse.cx links were posted by preschoolers!
By the way, that ad for Oracle in the middle of the article was ridiculously large and distracting. It made it kind of tough to focus on the article. Bad trend . . .
I have just registered the trademark "Anonymous Coward." All who wish to post to Slashdot using that name should send US$1 to me for each use. Pay pal accepted.
Slashdot Mirror
The primary motivation for this decision is our desire for convergence with Debian proper. From a technical perspective, nearly all of the features we introduced in Progeny Debian have found or are finding their way into Debian, and it is thus becoming increasingly unnecessary for us to continue investing the resources required to maintain a separate "Progeny enhanced" version.
From a business perspective, our customers consistently ask for Debian, not Progeny Debian, and while Progeny Debian is technically just a "release" of Debian (akin to "potato" or "woody" from the Debian project), the appearance of maintaining a separate or "forked" version is a liability given our company's shift away from a mass-market product and service focus and toward consulting and other professional services.
I read this to mean that the "standard" Debian distro is sufficiently good that a separate product is not necessary. Rather than being a sign of impending doom for Debian, I see this as a sign of its strength.
Is it, by any chance, on the Island of Misfit Toys?
. . . to any meaningful debate on the subject. Those who are in favor of globalization seem to define it in very different terms than those who support it. This is an issue that those who have protested at recent WTO meetings have failed to adequately address. They have successfully conveyed their message that "globalization is bad," but without further clarification, this will strike different audiences as either self-evident or as an absurdity, since "globalization" means entirely different things to different groups of people. If you take it to mean the exploitation of indigenous peoples by large multinational corporations, then of course it's bad. But if you take it to mean greater mutual understanding among people of different nations, it is long overdue. The problem is, globalization can, but does not necessarily, encompass all these things, and a lot more.
Globalization may well be inevitable, as Katz correctly points out, but what form it will take is yet to be determined. Therefore, rather than getting into a shouting match over whether globalization is Good or Bad, it would be much more productive to discuss how to take advantage of the opportunities that globalization presents us while avoiding the the dangers it presents. This is the challenge for our age.
QUESTION: It appears to me that the open source movement is gaining momentum, and as I understand it the key to success of a software product involves efficiently building an ecosystem of developers and users, resellers, and so forth. Doesn't the open source model a more efficient paradigm for building such a community around your products, and isn't perhaps Microsoft maybe on the wrong side of that trend of long-term?
MR. GATES: Let me start out, really the reason that you see open source there at all is because we came in and said there should be a platform that's identical with millions and millions of machines, and the bios of that should be open to everybody to use, and all the extensibility should be there. And so it was very predictable that once we had gotten the PC going, and going and gotten hundreds of millions of machines out there, that it had always been sort of free software and the universities would flourish and there would be more of that. We certainly accept free software as part of the software ecosystem. In fact, there's a very virtuous cycle where people do free things, some people find that adequate, sometimes companies will take that work and turn it into commercial products, those companies will hire people, pay taxes. And so you see the free software and the commercial software existing together.
There is a particular approach that breaks the cycle called the GPL that is not worth getting into today, but I don't think there is much awareness about how so-called free software foundations designed that to break that cycle.
In terms of getting people excited about software and building communities around them, yes, that is a key to success. Nobody has done that more effectively than we have with Windows. Are there ways that we can do that better? Are there aspects of this where we're actually learning from all our different competitors out there? I think it's fair to say yes.
In the pre-software vision is that there would be no jobs in the software industry, there would be no testers, no engineers, no taxes paid, or anything of that notion. So I certainly don't agree with the full sort of free software foundation view that there should be no jobs in this area, and that the kind of commercial advances and risk taking that we've been able to do you can't get that, you can't get things like speech recognition on a tablet computer coming out of that kind of a paradigm. You can get things that follow along, you can get some smaller software, and so we embraced the idea of the free software paradigm and the commercial software paradigm moving forward in really a self-reinforcing way.
MR. BALLMER: I just want to add one thing, echo what Bill said, but encourage you to go to our web site. If there's a key learning for us, we can't have free software, it's kind of inconsistent with the goals of most people in the room. We recognize it, it probably doesn't fit in most of these people's mind's eye, so we're not going to embrace that. But there is something about the way the community works to support itself which is brilliant, and which we've done many good things, but we think we've seen some good things sort of in the Linux, et cetera, world, and I encourage you to go up to Microsoft.com and check out our community areas. It's an area where we have sort of massively mobilized. It's still in the early phases, but we are massively mobilizing to try to stimulate communities, support communities, and really, if you will, borrow one from their playbook.
Or better yet, if we could only convince Apple to do the same thing! This would free Apple's OS division to aggressively market their products to all OEMs. Imagine if all the owners of x86 boxes out there had the option to install OSX instead of Windows.
I know this has been debated before, but I still think it makes sense.
Sounds kinda kinky. I would think one digit would be enough for most people.
Go ahead, mod me down! It's Friday, so I don't care!
This was clearly the work of a disgruntled former employee. Upset because he lost his job, Clippy wrote the letters, knowing that the fraud would be discovered and that Microsoft would get blamed. Revenge is sweet.
Getting a ticket for being on a nude beach, where nobody at all is complaining, can make you a "Sex Offender", no different in certain eyes than if you raped their 5 year old daughter.
Why on earth would you get a ticket just for being on a nude beach? The only reason I can think of is that the "nude beach" is in a location where public nudity is illegal. In that case, it's not really a "nude beach" at all, is it? It's just somewhere where a bunch of people decided to take their clothes off.
Maybe you meant to write "being nude on a beach" instead of "being on a nude beach"?
Now then, if your point is that public nudity should be legal, or that nude beaches should be legal, or that public nudity should not be classified as a sex crime, well, that's a different issue.
Another step? You mean this is the latest in a long line of attempts to build robotic dinosaurs to extirminate humanity, and the trend has escaped my attention until now?
Making it difficult to use is one thing. Making it illegal is another.
Consider the WINE project. They've had moderate success getting Microsoft Office to run on Linux. Now suppose the folks at Redmond put a clause in their licence stating that, even if I pay them good money for a full version of Word, I can't use it unless I've also paid someone for a proprietary OS?
I'd like to see the Justice Department's response to that!
Imagine the reverse scenario. Could I write proprietary software, and restrict its use to proprietary OSes? I think not.
It seemed odd that the article featured the same graph twice, each time with a different title --"U.S. Union Membership" the first time, and "U.S. Union Member Trends" the second time.
Pictures good! More pictures better!
Where were you during the '70s, man??? Have you never heard of the "sexual revolution"?? (Not that I was there, but at least I've heard tales.)
The Net is revolutionary in many ways, but people explored sexuality with freedom, and often with anonymity, long before the word "personal computer" ceased to be an oxymoron. Let's acknowledge the revolutionary nature of the Internet, but let's not exaggerate it ad absurdium.
Your arguments only make sense if you think that the sole purpose of evolution is to produce a super-human that has no physical limitations whatsoever. We can't see in the dark? Blame it on the shortcomings of evolution. We can't leap over tall buildings in a single bound? Blame it on the shortcomings of nature.
Name ONE problem on this planet that is the result of the poor workings of evolution. Before you answer, ask yourself: Is it a problem for life on this planet, or is it a problem for human beings? Is it a problem in the sense that the continued existence of our species is threatened, or is it a minor inconvenience? So I have to use glasses to improve my vision. Big deal. I don't see that as a threat to life on earth.
I am not a mystical tree hugger. Mother nature can be a cold-hearted bitch at times. Evolution does not favor any one species. But here we are, the product of evolution, using electric lights and computers and all sorts of neat stuff. Evolution is responsible for designing these wonderful brains in our heads. So it took a few billion years to get here? So what.
I'm not saying we should not, under any circumstances, create new life forms. I am saying that when we do it we should have a better reason than the fact that we need an interesting diversion. We should make damn sure we are not the ones being short-sighted. When the being with the neon green skin develops a horrible skin disease and dies a painful death, what will we say to asuage it? "Oops. My bad."???
The ability to create new life is the ultimate tool. With it, we become gods. There is a lot of responsibility that comes with that job description. Before we sign up, let's just make sure we think it over first.
"short-sightedness of nature"???!!!
Is there any thought or logic behind this phrase, or did you just think it sounded cool? Nature has given birth to myriad creatures of nearly infinite diversity, able to endure in nearly every climate found on the planet. Species come and go, but life endures. What, exactly, is it that you find so inadequate?
I can think of nothing more short-sighted than humans using a "genetic compiler" to create living beings with "cool" features such as neon green skin for no greater purpose than to provide an "interesting diversion." When we play with fire, we must do so with the greatest caution.
Nature sees the long term in ways you and I can only begin to imagine. In nature's view, we humans are expendable. Nature has all the time in the world. She can afford to wait.
The time of the splashdown will be 2001-03-21 14:58:26. The location will be 13317'26" E, 3954'40" S. My T-shirt will only become comfortable after it has been washed 11 times.
These are neither guesses nor predictions. They are expressions of my will. I will make it all come to pass.
(Hey, a little confidence never hurt.)
Open Source Bible?
How come the Pope refuses to integrate my patches to the Book of Exodus into the main kernel tree? Could it have anything to do with the kernel fork that occurred back in the 16th century? And how does this affect my plans to port the Book of Job to the Therevada Buddhist architecture?
Just curious.
M$ today unleashed their new .FLAMEBAIT platform.
Seriously, this is idiotic.
No one is forced to release software under the GPL. No one's intellectual property has been stolen. If you want to keep your goodies to yourself, no one is stopping you. No one was ever prevented from innovating by anyone in the Open Source movement.
This is the lowest level of attack: empty name-calling and appeals to irrational fears. Next they'll hold up a sheet of paper and say "I have in my hand a list of 107 known Communists in the Open Source Movement."
Please.
How to improve the bottom line? Fire everyone in the "Espionnage Department." Your shareholders will thank you for it.
This research would have interesting implications concerning the link between violence on TV and in movies . . .
EXCEPT for the fact that this research seems utterly and completely bogus.
Did anyone else notice how goofy the illustrations that accompanied the article were?
Yes, it will put miners out of work. New technology always puts some people out of work. Far fewer people today are employed as stable hands and farriers (blacksmiths that shoe horses) than before the introduction of the automobile.
The question is, given that certain jobs will be made obsolete, what should be done about it? If the head honchos at the mining companies are enlightened and benevolent, they will provide job training for the displaced miners. However, if companies' treatment of miners in the past is any indication of things to come, most miners will likely be left to fend for themselves. That is unfortunate. But now that the new technology is here, there's no going back.
What's wrong with them aggressively marketing their product? What would you rather have them do? Print a disclaimer on the front of the box, reading, "We think our distro is o.k., but other distros may be just as good or better."???
They are, after all, trying to make money, and that is a Good Thing. I'm all for everyone, from Red Hat to Debian to tomsrtbt, each marketing their distro as aggressively as possible. More aggressive marketing = more people getting into Linux = more fun for all of us.
Some group will try to assert that Greenland isn't really a continent.
Wait. Greenland isn't a continent??? But it looks so much bigger than Australia on my map!!!
Seriously, it doesn't matter if people call it a planet or not. It's still there, and it will continue to orbit the sun for the forseeable future. This is not news.
Now we can finally learn how many of those annoying hidden goatse.cx links were posted by preschoolers!
By the way, that ad for Oracle in the middle of the article was ridiculously large and distracting. It made it kind of tough to focus on the article. Bad trend . . .
I have just registered the trademark "Anonymous Coward." All who wish to post to Slashdot using that name should send US$1 to me for each use. Pay pal accepted.