Smaller than atoms is okay. Just don't get smaller than the
Plank Length.
Re:Yup as long as Dell isn't doing it
on
OSx86 Cracked Again
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Imagine that everyone has a duplicator. All new car development would cease because no automobile manufacturer would undertake the engineering effort required to produce new and improved models
No automobile manufacturer would undertake the marketin..., er, um, I meant to say, undertake the engineering effort required to produce new models?
Maybe this would be a good thing?
Everyone could duplicate their own cars? Why wouldn't this be good for everyone?
Open source cars?
Maybe the existing auto makers would create legislation to prevent copying of their designs. Fine.
I predict that open source car designs would emerge that anyone could download and use. Eventually these would advance beyond just being usable to being right on the coattails of proprietary car designs.
Please don't steal Apple's OS. Or the RIAA's music. If you use it, pay what is being asked for it. (Including open source.) If you don't like the price, pick something else.
Tivo adds a proprietary wrapper to an ordinary MPEG2 files for storage on the hard drive. This wrapper can be peeled off quite easily leaving a standard MPEG2 file.
I believe this "peeled off quite easily" only applies if you are running Windows. Am I wrong? Similarly, the TiVo To Go only is for Windows, therefore, to reformat for iPod I would also need Windows.
Therefore, while I find my TiVo to be wonderful in the living room, I can't get useful video from it unless I either
Hack my TiVo
Run Windows and the TTG and other software to do the "peeled off quite easily".
I understand your argument about the distinction between a workstation and an office PC.
It is outdated thinking.
If a workstation is so powerful, why can't it run an office suite, e-mail, browser, etc.? It is just a matter of software. The workstation has a processor, memory, disk, OS, etc.
Those high end applications you mention, they could, in principle, run on a high end version of what you call an "office pc". (I don't want to get into the difference between Windows and *ix here.)
In fact, the reason for the end of the age of workstations as Sun, Apollo, Domain, etc. used to sell, is because Intel PC's got so darned cheap, and with Linux, X, GCC, etc. you didn't need a $30,000 box from Sun to do the same thing you could do on a $4000 high end Dell quad Xeon with Linux.
The high end Linux box can run the same office, browser, e-mail, etc. as the low end Linux desktop.
You may believe (as many Linux users seem to) that closed-source commercial software is evil, but the most popular desktop OS in the world (Windows) got where it is today with a mix of closed -and- open source applications.
You omit a very important point.
The most popular desktop OS got where it is today through the leveraging of monopoly power and exclusionary arrangements with OEM's.
In fact this point is so important, that to point it out seriously undermines your argument that closed source is important to achieve success.
There are others who want to kill off any biological research involving vaccines, because liberals are putting wicked chemicals in them to kill everyone.
That is a very offensive distortion of the truth.
Everyone knows that biological research involving vaccines should be killed off because it short circuit's God's will that certain people should become infected.
Linux didn't really advance computing, Linux is yet another reimplementation of Unix.
What Linux is is different from whether it advanced computing or not. Your two sentences I quoted are not connected.
Whether Linux is a re-implementation of Unix is unrelated to whether it advanced computing.
You also make an implicit assumption that advance computing must necessarily mean that it has some amazingly innovative new technical feature.
The fact that I can download and install a free, high quality OS, with lots of software, that runs on less than fire-breathing hardware certainly seems like an advance to me. Linux did advance computing. (So did a lot of other free/Free software.)
Another advance, which seems like a Linux first, is an OS that runs on computers from wristwatches, PDA's, $25 Linksys plastic boxes, desktops, and million dollar mainframes.
Another advance, which is really unrelated to the actual software itself, is the speed of development made possible by the licensing model. Something that draws together major industry giants and smaller companies to contribute effort into a common goal which benefits everyone seems like an advance to me, albeit not a computer science advance.
Re:3 Word Summary of Practical Mono
on
Practical Mono
·
· Score: 1
It seems to me that you left out some curly brackety thingies in the Java version.
Joe Fourpack would flash the bios. All he would need is an e-mail instructing him that if he updates his computer by flipping this bios switch thingy and then clicking OK, he will be able to play the attached new pr0n file.
Is this true even if the board is, say the size of a
GumStix
?
i.e. a stick of gum, but with enough memory/processor for at least some games, X, a few bouncing icons, fading menus, nice boot-time greeting sound, etc.
Joking aside, is it really that difficult to shield a very small board?
I care about my freedom, not someone else's ability to make a profit at the expense of my freedom. I'm happy with freedom. I'm even more happy if I can keep my freedom and others can make a profit selling me something. Commerce then ensues. Profit and freedom are not mutually exclusive. FSF cares about freedom. This is not anti-business. If you think it is anti-business, then you only see business as being anti-freedom.
Focusing on whether the GPLv3 should ban an entire field (DRM) of software development, I would have to say it should.
Anyone wanting to develop DRM is free to do so. They can develop their own license, or use another existing license. I suspect that someone developing DRM has lots of money and therefore lawyers on their side.
DRM and Open Source is an oxymoron. Rationale: There has to be a secret somewhere. Classic non-trusted DRM cannot be open source. Trusted computing could be open source, but then the secret key within your TPM chip remains a secret. So even an open source, signed TCP bootloader, OS, etc., are fairly useless if you can't freely alter them. If you can alter them sufficiently to defeat the trust, including altering/recompiling the kernel, then they aren't really effective at DRM; if you can't alter them, then they are un-interesting as open source.
To me, there's a huge difference between free software and free content, and it seems to me that this stance in GPL3 is essentailly saying that if you want to make the former, you've got to embrace the latter as well.
Your argument is built on a fallacy.
You imply that content is either DRM or is free. There can be no such thing as content that is simultaneously non-DRM and non-free.
Yet today we have CDs, for example, which are non-free, but simultaneously non-DRM.
The GPL is taking no such stance. You can embrace free software, and free content, and non-free software, and non-free content. While some people may not tolerate software or content unless it is free, the GPLv3 itself does not require you to swear any such allegiance. If I release something under GPLv3, I do not have to swear such an allegiance.
Another nit. Instead of "embrace free content" you should say "reject non-free content". I can embrace free content and embrace non-free content at the same time. They are not mutually exclusive.
You say a lot about extremism. Either we have DRM or we don't. Either we have freedom or we don't. Either I have control of my own hardware, and physical media, or I don't. Is it extremist to not provide the very tools that might be used to take away our freedom? Someone else said that the DRM side would just switch to non-free software in order to take our freedom. Would you rather that I beat you with your lead pipe, or should I get a lead pipe from some other source in order to beat you with it? Don't be extremist, just give me your lead pipe to use against you.
Some months ago, I saw a remark on slashdot. The gist of it was: I wish I could go back to the good old days when Richard Stallman was just a paranoid nutcase conspiracy theorist. (or something to that effect.)
RMS has been far more prophetic than he gets credit for about what bad actors will do.
If Linux were not GPLv2 licensed, and were, say BSD licensed, then I am confident that...
The SCO situation would have played out differently, but I'm not sure how.
Microsoft would have "embraced and extended" us with Microsoft Linux. Yes folks, the one True Linux that can run all of your favorite applications such as Outlook, Excel, etc., unlike those other no-name brands of Linux.
I have no particular fondness for RMS or FSF. But I admire that they have worked to protect the freedom of the users of their software, and software of anyone willing to use their license. I've also got to commend them for being unflinching in this.
If there was one hope for an acceptable DRM solution it was the OS community. Atleast there are still many other good licenses out there that don't ban and entire field of software development.
If there was one hope for an acceptable way to take away our freedom, it was the OS community. At least there are still many other good EULA's out there to take away our freedom.
I'm still not quite sure about that second sentence. How does the GPLv3 ban the entire field of software development?
FSF/GNU doesn't care about the business world, only about its own ideological purity.
When I read the rationale behind the license, I never saw anything expressing concern about their ideological purity. But I did see things expressing their concern for MY FREEDOM.
Remember companies are like children. If they don't get their way they'll find a way round it to keep doing exactly what they want, anything from outright ignoring the GPL to laughing at it as they switch back to Windows.
You are saying that no matter what we do, they are absolutely determined to take away our freedom. Therefore, you suggest, we should not resist their efforts, but we should assist them by providing them with our code to use against us.
You also suggest that if they use Windows to take away our freedom, that it is somehow worse than if they use GPLv3 code to take away our freedom.
Okay, I'm going to beat you up now. Would you prefer to be beaten by my leather strap or by your leather strap? If you don't provide me with your strap, I'll just switch back to the Microsoft brand and use it against you anyway.
The problem is he has absolutely no clout with the very entities this is aimed at. Does he actually think Sony will give up using DRM so they can keep using GPL software?
I don't believe that he has any such delusions.
If they are going to make DRM, then we should not be helping them to take away our freedom.
If you don't mind them taking away your freedom, you can always license your code under a "please use this code in your DRM" licenase.
Google could log the MD5 of the IP address, the MD5 of the cookie, and what was searched for.
When someone logs in, or provides their cookie, Google could continue to provide more targeted ads, because they can match the MD5 of your IP and cookie to their logs.
When you use GMail, Google could log the SHA-1 of your IP and cookie.
Later on, when Big "bush" Brother comes knocking, they can provide the logs. Niether the search engine nor gmail logs reveal your IP or cookie. The search and gmail logs cannot be correlated at a later time. (Thus any correlation analysis of your gmail for concepts relating to ads would need to be done "right away" before the original IP/cookie information is discarded. For any suitable definition of "right away".)
When Big "bush" Brother comes knocking on your individual door, they can retrieve your cookie and correlate you individually to your gmail and searches. (Note: It may be unnecessary to obtain a court order or have any judicial or congressional review, since, after all, you might be gmailing to or searching for... gasp... Nuculoor Weapons or Al-Queda, located in Iran, which needs to be "liberated".) Nevertheless, they might need to come to you to obtain your cookie individually, rather than just be able to massively sift through Google records.
In the end, it would be simipler if the government were our ISP's, and we all used government provided e-mail servers and search engines.
Not only robots.txt, but also Google has a form to request removal of your site. I don't know, but wouldn't be surprised if both Yahoo and MSN didn't have the same.
Let me guess. I think he doesn't want to give up the traffic that search engines generate. He just wants search engines not to make money. Did I guess correctly?
It would be helpful if there were a chart comparing pros and cons of various virtualization approaches.
In particular, Xan has an advantage that different operating systems can run concurrently.
If you want Linux, and only Linux, then OpenVZ/Vserver might be a better solution. But if the single kernel crashes, all of the isolated virtualized sets of processes also crash. Under Xen, if one kernel crashed, the other kernel's (which might even be a different OS) are less likely to be affected.
OpenVZ/Vserver might make more efficient use of memory. This is an assumption. A single kernel is managing memory. Memory unused by one isolated group of server processes might be used by a more heavily loaded group of server processes on that same kernel. With Xen, you pre-allocate a fixed amount of memory to each domain, and the OS that boots into that domain has that much memory, even if it is not being efficiently used.
VMWare seems to me to be most like Xen in the pros/cons department, except for the emulation inefficiency. Xen requires an OS to have minor alterations to port the OS to run on Xen (paravirtualization), while VMWare can run any OS unmodified (or that you are unable to modify *cough* Windows *cough*).
In 2006 once Intel/AMD have virtualization in hardware, and once Xen supports it, then the one advantage that VMWare has (run unmodified Windows OS) will disappear, as Xen will also be able to do this.
Have I missed anything? Are there other pros/cons I have overlooked?
Slashdot Mirror
No automobile manufacturer would undertake the marketin..., er, um, I meant to say, undertake the engineering effort required to produce new models?
Maybe this would be a good thing?
Everyone could duplicate their own cars? Why wouldn't this be good for everyone?
Open source cars?
Maybe the existing auto makers would create legislation to prevent copying of their designs. Fine.
I predict that open source car designs would emerge that anyone could download and use. Eventually these would advance beyond just being usable to being right on the coattails of proprietary car designs.
Please don't steal Apple's OS. Or the RIAA's music. If you use it, pay what is being asked for it. (Including open source.) If you don't like the price, pick something else.
I believe this "peeled off quite easily" only applies if you are running Windows. Am I wrong? Similarly, the TiVo To Go only is for Windows, therefore, to reformat for iPod I would also need Windows.
Therefore, while I find my TiVo to be wonderful in the living room, I can't get useful video from it unless I either
- Hack my TiVo
- Run Windows and the TTG and other software to do the "peeled off quite easily".
Please correct me if I am wrong.I see a business opportunity for Google coming up!
But will Google be required to block out certian portions of the moon's surface?
I understand your argument about the distinction between a workstation and an office PC.
It is outdated thinking.
If a workstation is so powerful, why can't it run an office suite, e-mail, browser, etc.? It is just a matter of software. The workstation has a processor, memory, disk, OS, etc.
Those high end applications you mention, they could, in principle, run on a high end version of what you call an "office pc". (I don't want to get into the difference between Windows and *ix here.)
In fact, the reason for the end of the age of workstations as Sun, Apollo, Domain, etc. used to sell, is because Intel PC's got so darned cheap, and with Linux, X, GCC, etc. you didn't need a $30,000 box from Sun to do the same thing you could do on a $4000 high end Dell quad Xeon with Linux.
The high end Linux box can run the same office, browser, e-mail, etc. as the low end Linux desktop.
You may believe (as many Linux users seem to) that closed-source commercial software is evil, but the most popular desktop OS in the world (Windows) got where it is today with a mix of closed -and- open source applications.
You omit a very important point.
The most popular desktop OS got where it is today through the leveraging of monopoly power and exclusionary arrangements with OEM's.
In fact this point is so important, that to point it out seriously undermines your argument that closed source is important to achieve success.
There are others who want to kill off any biological research involving vaccines, because liberals are putting wicked chemicals in them to kill everyone.
:-)
:-)
:-)
That is a very offensive distortion of the truth.
Everyone knows that biological research involving vaccines should be killed off because it short circuit's God's will that certain people should become infected.
Linux didn't really advance computing, Linux is yet another reimplementation of Unix.
What Linux is is different from whether it advanced computing or not. Your two sentences I quoted are not connected.
Whether Linux is a re-implementation of Unix is unrelated to whether it advanced computing.
You also make an implicit assumption that advance computing must necessarily mean that it has some amazingly innovative new technical feature.
The fact that I can download and install a free, high quality OS, with lots of software, that runs on less than fire-breathing hardware certainly seems like an advance to me. Linux did advance computing. (So did a lot of other free/Free software.)
Another advance, which seems like a Linux first, is an OS that runs on computers from wristwatches, PDA's, $25 Linksys plastic boxes, desktops, and million dollar mainframes.
Another advance, which is really unrelated to the actual software itself, is the speed of development made possible by the licensing model. Something that draws together major industry giants and smaller companies to contribute effort into a common goal which benefits everyone seems like an advance to me, albeit not a computer science advance.
It seems to me that you left out some curly brackety thingies in the Java version.
Joe Fourpack would flash the bios. All he would need is an e-mail instructing him that if he updates his computer by flipping this bios switch thingy and then clicking OK, he will be able to play the attached new pr0n file.
Note that Joe Fourpack is two short of a sixpack.
Microsoft is always at the end of every computer joke
Please note that the M of MSN is at the beginning. This shows that sometimes Microsoft is at the beginning of a joke.
Is this true even if the board is, say the size of a GumStix ? i.e. a stick of gum, but with enough memory/processor for at least some games, X, a few bouncing icons, fading menus, nice boot-time greeting sound, etc.
Joking aside, is it really that difficult to shield a very small board?
I care about my freedom, not someone else's ability to make a profit at the expense of my freedom. I'm happy with freedom. I'm even more happy if I can keep my freedom and others can make a profit selling me something. Commerce then ensues. Profit and freedom are not mutually exclusive. FSF cares about freedom. This is not anti-business. If you think it is anti-business, then you only see business as being anti-freedom.
Thanks for the clarification.
Focusing on whether the GPLv3 should ban an entire field (DRM) of software development, I would have to say it should.
Anyone wanting to develop DRM is free to do so. They can develop their own license, or use another existing license. I suspect that someone developing DRM has lots of money and therefore lawyers on their side.
DRM and Open Source is an oxymoron. Rationale: There has to be a secret somewhere. Classic non-trusted DRM cannot be open source. Trusted computing could be open source, but then the secret key within your TPM chip remains a secret. So even an open source, signed TCP bootloader, OS, etc., are fairly useless if you can't freely alter them. If you can alter them sufficiently to defeat the trust, including altering/recompiling the kernel, then they aren't really effective at DRM; if you can't alter them, then they are un-interesting as open source.
Were you the one trying the leather strap earlier?
Yes. An analogy. There is a lot of FUD in this discussion. I don't think it all comes from any one particular side. Good luck to you also.
To me, there's a huge difference between free software and free content, and it seems to me that this stance in GPL3 is essentailly saying that if you want to make the former, you've got to embrace the latter as well.
Your argument is built on a fallacy.
You imply that content is either DRM or is free. There can be no such thing as content that is simultaneously non-DRM and non-free.
Yet today we have CDs, for example, which are non-free, but simultaneously non-DRM.
The GPL is taking no such stance. You can embrace free software, and free content, and non-free software, and non-free content. While some people may not tolerate software or content unless it is free, the GPLv3 itself does not require you to swear any such allegiance. If I release something under GPLv3, I do not have to swear such an allegiance.
Another nit. Instead of "embrace free content" you should say "reject non-free content". I can embrace free content and embrace non-free content at the same time. They are not mutually exclusive.
You say a lot about extremism. Either we have DRM or we don't. Either we have freedom or we don't. Either I have control of my own hardware, and physical media, or I don't. Is it extremist to not provide the very tools that might be used to take away our freedom? Someone else said that the DRM side would just switch to non-free software in order to take our freedom. Would you rather that I beat you with your lead pipe, or should I get a lead pipe from some other source in order to beat you with it? Don't be extremist, just give me your lead pipe to use against you.
RMS has been far more prophetic than he gets credit for about what bad actors will do.
If Linux were not GPLv2 licensed, and were, say BSD licensed, then I am confident that...
I have no particular fondness for RMS or FSF. But I admire that they have worked to protect the freedom of the users of their software, and software of anyone willing to use their license. I've also got to commend them for being unflinching in this.
If there was one hope for an acceptable DRM solution it was the OS community. Atleast there are still many other good licenses out there that don't ban and entire field of software development.
If there was one hope for an acceptable way to take away our freedom, it was the OS community. At least there are still many other good EULA's out there to take away our freedom.
I'm still not quite sure about that second sentence. How does the GPLv3 ban the entire field of software development?
FSF/GNU doesn't care about the business world, only about its own ideological purity.
When I read the rationale behind the license, I never saw anything expressing concern about their ideological purity. But I did see things expressing their concern for MY FREEDOM.
Remember companies are like children. If they don't get their way they'll find a way round it to keep doing exactly what they want, anything from outright ignoring the GPL to laughing at it as they switch back to Windows.
You are saying that no matter what we do, they are absolutely determined to take away our freedom. Therefore, you suggest, we should not resist their efforts, but we should assist them by providing them with our code to use against us.
You also suggest that if they use Windows to take away our freedom, that it is somehow worse than if they use GPLv3 code to take away our freedom.
Okay, I'm going to beat you up now. Would you prefer to be beaten by my leather strap or by your leather strap? If you don't provide me with your strap, I'll just switch back to the Microsoft brand and use it against you anyway.
The problem is he has absolutely no clout with the very entities this is aimed at. Does he actually think Sony will give up using DRM so they can keep using GPL software?
I don't believe that he has any such delusions.
If they are going to make DRM, then we should not be helping them to take away our freedom.
If you don't mind them taking away your freedom, you can always license your code under a "please use this code in your DRM" licenase.
You could salt the hashes to increase cost. But you make a good point.
Google could log the MD5 of the IP address, the MD5 of the cookie, and what was searched for.
When someone logs in, or provides their cookie, Google could continue to provide more targeted ads, because they can match the MD5 of your IP and cookie to their logs.
When you use GMail, Google could log the SHA-1 of your IP and cookie.
Later on, when Big "bush" Brother comes knocking, they can provide the logs. Niether the search engine nor gmail logs reveal your IP or cookie. The search and gmail logs cannot be correlated at a later time. (Thus any correlation analysis of your gmail for concepts relating to ads would need to be done "right away" before the original IP/cookie information is discarded. For any suitable definition of "right away".)
When Big "bush" Brother comes knocking on your individual door, they can retrieve your cookie and correlate you individually to your gmail and searches. (Note: It may be unnecessary to obtain a court order or have any judicial or congressional review, since, after all, you might be gmailing to or searching for... gasp... Nuculoor Weapons or Al-Queda, located in Iran, which needs to be "liberated".) Nevertheless, they might need to come to you to obtain your cookie individually, rather than just be able to massively sift through Google records.
In the end, it would be simipler if the government were our ISP's, and we all used government provided e-mail servers and search engines.
Not only robots.txt, but also Google has a form to request removal of your site. I don't know, but wouldn't be surprised if both Yahoo and MSN didn't have the same.
Let me guess. I think he doesn't want to give up the traffic that search engines generate. He just wants search engines not to make money. Did I guess correctly?
It would be helpful if there were a chart comparing pros and cons of various virtualization approaches.
In particular, Xan has an advantage that different operating systems can run concurrently.
If you want Linux, and only Linux, then OpenVZ/Vserver might be a better solution. But if the single kernel crashes, all of the isolated virtualized sets of processes also crash. Under Xen, if one kernel crashed, the other kernel's (which might even be a different OS) are less likely to be affected.
OpenVZ/Vserver might make more efficient use of memory. This is an assumption. A single kernel is managing memory. Memory unused by one isolated group of server processes might be used by a more heavily loaded group of server processes on that same kernel. With Xen, you pre-allocate a fixed amount of memory to each domain, and the OS that boots into that domain has that much memory, even if it is not being efficiently used.
VMWare seems to me to be most like Xen in the pros/cons department, except for the emulation inefficiency. Xen requires an OS to have minor alterations to port the OS to run on Xen (paravirtualization), while VMWare can run any OS unmodified (or that you are unable to modify *cough* Windows *cough*).
In 2006 once Intel/AMD have virtualization in hardware, and once Xen supports it, then the one advantage that VMWare has (run unmodified Windows OS) will disappear, as Xen will also be able to do this.
Have I missed anything? Are there other pros/cons I have overlooked?