> I have a hard time taking anecdotal evidence against Microsoft seriously from someone who says "M$" and "M$ sucks." And I *hate* Microsoft with a passion.
You're right, it does seem pretty stupid. It's mostly habit -- M$ looks better than MS to me. And I don't hate Microsoft at all. I think their products are 100% steaming excrement, and their business practices are bordering on illegal, and they're generally evil, but there's no need to hate. I just don't deal with them. Don't use their products, don't use wmv-encoded videos, etc. Fuck M$. They can dominate somone else.
> too much conceptual integrity, professionalism, and innovation
I've thought about this a bit, and you're exactly right. One would think that OSS would suffer from there being "too many cooks in the kitchen", but this just doesn't happen in good projects. In Linux, for example, Linus keeps the cooks in check and doesn't add anything to the vanilla kernel without good reason. This keeps Linux clean and un-bloated. This is really counter to one's initial conception of OSS -- anyone can cvs commit anything, so it's going to be disorganized and bloated. It just doesn't happen that way, though.
Commercial software, interestingly enough, does show that there are too many cooks in the kitchen. Look at all the useless features in Excel and Word that nobody needs or asked for. Some guy wrote it one day for fun, and then it's in the next version. Look at that stupid dog that comes up when you do a search in XP? Who thought that was a good idea?
Obviously not all OSS projects are the same, nor are all proprietary projects, but it's interesting to look at examples like these.
> Regarding performance of SVN, yes we are clear we need to put a lot of RAM into the servers. But we cant get rid of the disk IO it seems as SVN does not cash requests (in this case all clients allways want the same release to upgrade to, and most of the time they either have the previous or the second oldest release installed)
Subversion doesn't need to cache requests -- the OS* does this itself. With plenty of RAM, whatever isn't being used by processes is used for cache. If you don't trust the disk caching algorithm, just make a 2.5G ramdisk and copy your files over to that when you want to release them. Then the disk won't be a problem.
* Assuming you're using a Real OS, and not Windows. Don't use Windows for anything that requires speed or reliability.
I believe that M$ has a clause in their contract that says you can't even look at GPL'd software. I know a few people at my school that were suckered into working there and now they can't work on OSS for a few years, or something. M$ sucks.
What does the MethLabs whining have to do with OSS? Nothing.
Most people judge the OSS movement by the "big players" like Linux, Apache, MySQL, etc. Not some P2P plugin that blocks teh gubmint.
(Not that this is necessarily fair, I think there are much better OSS products, like OpenBSD/OpenSSH, GNU, Perl, etc. Apache and MySQL are bloated to the point of being nearly useless.)
Seriously, if you don't like open source then you're free to get your software somewhere else. The fact that people even write articles like this really says something -- that the traditional industry is afraid of open source. It makes sense that an industry that sells virus-infected software for $200 a pop is afraid of a kind of software that doesn't cost any money and has most of its critical bugs fixed in a week.
But, if you don't like that, nobody's forcing you to use it. Don't like Linux? Don't use it! Whining about how it's unprofessional or unsafe or whatever isn't going to solve any of your problems. Try writing software that's better or cheaper... if you can't do that then you need a new industry. (Oh, I have an idea. Let's make OSS illegal since it hurts business. It worked for P2P and the music industry, right?)
> but it won't be on account of Apple's browser, Safari
Why do you say that? Have you seen the code for Safari? No?
Try visiting data://<h1>crash</h1> in Safari. It crashes solid and dies in <b>memcpy</b>. Doesn't that worry you... arbitrary data from the Internet causing problems with memcpy!?
I wish I had the code so I could evaluate the risk, but instead I have to wait until Apple feels like fixing it.
> been meaning to thank you for [running a buggy old mail server]
Actually, mail relaying access control existed back in 1998. The newest version of qmail was released on 6/18/1998! Amazing how something written by one guy can stay secure for that long when we've been through like 4 different variants of Windows in the same time:)
What I find especially interesting is that Microsoft, one of the largest companies in the world with lots and lots of resources, keeps "accidentally" inserting security holes into their projects. In the Win98 days, they told us to upgrade to ME "for security reasons". Then we had to upgrade to 2000 for the same reason. Then XP. Then SP2. Now Vista.
I've been using the same mail server without even a point upgrade since 1998. Does Microsoft not have the resources to hire people that can write secure software!?
It it security that's MS is really worrying about and not ensuring future income? Microsoft sounds like they're saying, "Oh sorry about those security holes... you'll have to pay us more money to keep your private data private. You don't have to upgrade, but then your data will be stolen. Really you should upgrade...but nobody's holding a gun to your head right?"
How is this any different than my bank saying, "We're going to sell your account number and SSN unless you pay us money now."?
The furniture you buy can make a huge difference in how much space you have. I live in a small apartment, and have way too many tables (because I write, do homework, tinker with electronics, have multiple computers, etc.) I made room by getting a bunk bed that doesn't have a bed on the bottom. I have my main computer desk `under' my bed, and I sleep on top.
I also have other helpful pieces of IKEA furniture, like a $39 desk-on-wheels for my Linux desktop. It is really easy to move around, so when you have to rearrange furniture, it's not too much effort. Other things I've found helpful are shelves with partitions and things like:
You are an idiot. My argument is that many people think that they have to spend money to make Windows useful, and they do do this. If nobody bought Word, Dreamweaver, Acrobat Pro, Photoshop, etc. then Windows wouldn't be very useful. Yes you can run OSS on Windows. No, most people don't. They go to their local computer store and buy the software that comes in a box. If you don't think this is the case, you are deluding yourself!
OK. Walk over to a Windows machine that you don't own or control. An average users' machine. Tell me what software they have installed, then tell me how much it cost.
> Choose OSX for a *nix that has user friendliness, free speech-y-ness and most of the security?
BSD is not a free speech license. And the rest of OS X is proprietary garbage just like Windows. Type this link in Safari (/. won't let me make it clickable):
data://<h1>crash</h1>
That said, OS X is still my preferred OS for things like web browsing and sync-ing my iPod, but claiming that's free speech-y and 100% bug free is just plain naive.
The rm command above won't execute with root privileges. First, you execute bash as root, and get the following output:
yourhost:/#
Then you log out of the root shell, and the part after the ; executes as your user. So the rm -rf/* executed as your user, not root. If your permissions were set up so that your user could remove any file on the system, then you deserve what you got. That is definitely not out-of-the-box behavior.
If you wanted to execute rm -rf/* (the * is unnecessary) as root, then you should have typed sudo rm -rf / or sudo bash -c 'rm -rf/', etc. But what you wrote above does not do what you think it does.
Yes, but I think you would also have no problem using Linux. For you and me, it's easy to use OSS under Windows because we already know about it from using Linux or BSD, etc. (Actually, I'm just assuming here. But I doubt you read slashdot and use OSS under Windows without ever having used a Free UNIX:)
However, OSS and Linux is a much better combination. Thankfully I now use a mac at work and do not have any accounts on any Windows machines:)
It all comes down to knowing what you're doing. If you know how to work around Windows' stupidity (Hey, I have a driver right in this folder... just fucking let me select it) then I guess Windows is fine. After you've loaded Anti-Virus that is. And a new web browser. And some anti-spyware software. And a firewall.
Now that 60% of your memory is used up, you can start thinking about which $500 applications you want. A word processor and spreadsheet maybe? $500. Maybe some photo editing software? $700. You get my point. Easy to use out of the box, sure. That's because it can't do anything out of the box... and you've already spent $150 on it!
I personally will stick with Linux which has no box and a new piece of software is just an apt-get away.
Even if you manage to do everything you want to do with free software under Windows, you still have to go out and find it every damn time you re-install. And you have to keep it up to date yourself, there's nothing that automates that. Easy to use indeed.
Slashdot Mirror
> Trusted computing should take care of BSD/Linux.
Please explain how trusted computing will render the computer I'm using now unusable.
> I have a hard time taking anecdotal evidence against Microsoft seriously from someone who says "M$" and "M$ sucks." And I *hate* Microsoft with a passion.
You're right, it does seem pretty stupid. It's mostly habit -- M$ looks better than MS to me. And I don't hate Microsoft at all. I think their products are 100% steaming excrement, and their business practices are bordering on illegal, and they're generally evil, but there's no need to hate. I just don't deal with them. Don't use their products, don't use wmv-encoded videos, etc. Fuck M$. They can dominate somone else.
> too much conceptual integrity, professionalism, and innovation
I've thought about this a bit, and you're exactly right. One would think that OSS would suffer from there being "too many cooks in the kitchen", but this just doesn't happen in good projects. In Linux, for example, Linus keeps the cooks in check and doesn't add anything to the vanilla kernel without good reason. This keeps Linux clean and un-bloated. This is really counter to one's initial conception of OSS -- anyone can cvs commit anything, so it's going to be disorganized and bloated. It just doesn't happen that way, though.
Commercial software, interestingly enough, does show that there are too many cooks in the kitchen. Look at all the useless features in Excel and Word that nobody needs or asked for. Some guy wrote it one day for fun, and then it's in the next version. Look at that stupid dog that comes up when you do a search in XP? Who thought that was a good idea?
Obviously not all OSS projects are the same, nor are all proprietary projects, but it's interesting to look at examples like these.
> Regarding performance of SVN, yes we are clear we need to put a lot of RAM into the servers. But we cant get rid of the disk IO it seems as SVN does not cash requests (in this case all clients allways want the same release to upgrade to, and most of the time they either have the previous or the second oldest release installed)
Subversion doesn't need to cache requests -- the OS* does this itself. With plenty of RAM, whatever isn't being used by processes is used for cache. If you don't trust the disk caching algorithm, just make a 2.5G ramdisk and copy your files over to that when you want to release them. Then the disk won't be a problem.
* Assuming you're using a Real OS, and not Windows. Don't use Windows for anything that requires speed or reliability.
I believe that M$ has a clause in their contract that says you can't even look at GPL'd software. I know a few people at my school that were suckered into working there and now they can't work on OSS for a few years, or something. M$ sucks.
What does the MethLabs whining have to do with OSS? Nothing.
Most people judge the OSS movement by the "big players" like Linux, Apache, MySQL, etc. Not some P2P plugin that blocks teh gubmint.
(Not that this is necessarily fair, I think there are much better OSS products, like OpenBSD/OpenSSH, GNU, Perl, etc. Apache and MySQL are bloated to the point of being nearly useless.)
You took the words right out of my mouth :)
Seriously, if you don't like open source then you're free to get your software somewhere else. The fact that people even write articles like this really says something -- that the traditional industry is afraid of open source. It makes sense that an industry that sells virus-infected software for $200 a pop is afraid of a kind of software that doesn't cost any money and has most of its critical bugs fixed in a week.
But, if you don't like that, nobody's forcing you to use it. Don't like Linux? Don't use it! Whining about how it's unprofessional or unsafe or whatever isn't going to solve any of your problems. Try writing software that's better or cheaper... if you can't do that then you need a new industry. (Oh, I have an idea. Let's make OSS illegal since it hurts business. It worked for P2P and the music industry, right?)
What if instead you're using a *nix variant and the file contains a
#!/bin/sh
line at the top? Technically the correct behavior would be to execute it as a shell script (assuming that it's +x, of course, which isn't likely).
> but it won't be on account of Apple's browser, Safari
Why do you say that? Have you seen the code for Safari? No?
Try visiting data://<h1>crash</h1> in Safari. It crashes solid and dies in <b>memcpy</b>. Doesn't that worry you... arbitrary data from the Internet causing problems with memcpy!?
I wish I had the code so I could evaluate the risk, but instead I have to wait until Apple feels like fixing it.
> whats your ip address?
My domain is jrock.us. Trust me, my SMTP server is plenty secure. Feel free to try relaying some mail and let me know how it goes.
> been meaning to thank you for [running a buggy old mail server]
:)
Actually, mail relaying access control existed back in 1998. The newest version of qmail was released on 6/18/1998! Amazing how something written by one guy can stay secure for that long when we've been through like 4 different variants of Windows in the same time
> Come on, try to hack my 31337 firewall! [127.0.0.1]
I just ssh'd in and apparently your root user has the same password as mine!
> (I was a dev for Avalon (the presentation layer of Longhorn (Vista)))
They should have had you writing the LISP interperter.
I'm sorry, but astronomers renamed Uranus in 2620 to end that stupid joke once and for all.
What's it called now? Urectum.
What I find especially interesting is that Microsoft, one of the largest companies in the world with lots and lots of resources, keeps "accidentally" inserting security holes into their projects. In the Win98 days, they told us to upgrade to ME "for security reasons". Then we had to upgrade to 2000 for the same reason. Then XP. Then SP2. Now Vista.
I've been using the same mail server without even a point upgrade since 1998. Does Microsoft not have the resources to hire people that can write secure software!?
It it security that's MS is really worrying about and not ensuring future income? Microsoft sounds like they're saying, "Oh sorry about those security holes... you'll have to pay us more money to keep your private data private. You don't have to upgrade, but then your data will be stolen. Really you should upgrade...but nobody's holding a gun to your head right?"
How is this any different than my bank saying, "We're going to sell your account number and SSN unless you pay us money now."?
> I won't buy another pair of shoes untill they get a hole
MS is one step ahead of you. They ship brand new OSes with lots of holes in them.
The furniture you buy can make a huge difference in how much space you have. I live in a small apartment, and have way too many tables (because I write, do homework, tinker with electronics, have multiple computers, etc.) I made room by getting a bunk bed that doesn't have a bed on the bottom. I have my main computer desk `under' my bed, and I sleep on top.
d uctDisplay?catalogId=10101&storeId=12&productId=11 534&langId=-1&parentCats=10103*10144
d uctDisplay?catalogId=10101&storeId=12&langId=-1&pr oductId=15923
You can find the one I have at IKEA for $200:
http://www.ikea.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/Pro
I also have other helpful pieces of IKEA furniture, like a $39 desk-on-wheels for my Linux desktop. It is really easy to move around, so when you have to rearrange furniture, it's not too much effort. Other things I've found helpful are shelves with partitions and things like:
http://www.ikea.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/Pro
This lets me store my junk somewhere but not have to look at it. Very helpful, and a very good looking coffee table.
You are an idiot. My argument is that many people think that they have to spend money to make Windows useful, and they do do this. If nobody bought Word, Dreamweaver, Acrobat Pro, Photoshop, etc. then Windows wouldn't be very useful. Yes you can run OSS on Windows. No, most people don't. They go to their local computer store and buy the software that comes in a box. If you don't think this is the case, you are deluding yourself!
OK. Walk over to a Windows machine that you don't own or control. An average users' machine. Tell me what software they have installed, then tell me how much it cost.
Thanks.
> Choose OSX for a *nix that has user friendliness, free speech-y-ness and most of the security?
BSD is not a free speech license. And the rest of OS X is proprietary garbage just like Windows. Type this link in Safari (/. won't let me make it clickable):
data://<h1>crash</h1>
That said, OS X is still my preferred OS for things like web browsing and sync-ing my iPod, but claiming that's free speech-y and 100% bug free is just plain naive.
The rm command above won't execute with root privileges. First, you execute bash as root, and get the following output:
/* executed as your user, not root. If your permissions were set up so that your user could remove any file on the system, then you deserve what you got. That is definitely not out-of-the-box behavior.
/* (the * is unnecessary) as root, then you should have typed sudo rm -rf / or sudo bash -c 'rm -rf /', etc. But what you wrote above does not do what you think it does.
yourhost:/#
Then you log out of the root shell, and the part after the ; executes as your user. So the rm -rf
If you wanted to execute rm -rf
> postfix as an example of a program that was designed from the outset to be secure
Uhh... except that postfix has had a number of severe security problems over the years!
Postfix Disasters
And to solve the security problems, the postfix developers denyed them for quite a while! Not good security at all! Postfix is pretty much a failure.
Yes, but I think you would also have no problem using Linux. For you and me, it's easy to use OSS under Windows because we already know about it from using Linux or BSD, etc. (Actually, I'm just assuming here. But I doubt you read slashdot and use OSS under Windows without ever having used a Free UNIX :)
:)
However, OSS and Linux is a much better combination. Thankfully I now use a mac at work and do not have any accounts on any Windows machines
It all comes down to knowing what you're doing. If you know how to work around Windows' stupidity (Hey, I have a driver right in this folder... just fucking let me select it) then I guess Windows is fine. After you've loaded Anti-Virus that is. And a new web browser. And some anti-spyware software. And a firewall.
Now that 60% of your memory is used up, you can start thinking about which $500 applications you want. A word processor and spreadsheet maybe? $500. Maybe some photo editing software? $700. You get my point. Easy to use out of the box, sure. That's because it can't do anything out of the box... and you've already spent $150 on it!
I personally will stick with Linux which has no box and a new piece of software is just an apt-get away.
Even if you manage to do everything you want to do with free software under Windows, you still have to go out and find it every damn time you re-install. And you have to keep it up to date yourself, there's nothing that automates that. Easy to use indeed.
These were the exact 6 words that came to mind when I read that :) I don't know who John Wayne is, but I do know that he's frozen.
And as soon as we find a cure for cancer, I'm going to thaw him out and have a big democracy cakewalk right through the middle of Tienman square.