I, like many others, see this as a good thing because I believe that AOL will be able to compete better with M$.
Even if M$ weren't so powerful, it would still be good, be AOL could offer a more complete service.
My only concern would be that the RH advantages that we have now, would be lost if there is a take over. However, I don't think that that would be too significant, because it isn't as if AOL could force people to not have certain features.
Actually, I think that the Linux community will adapt in some way to help people with problems. Maybe they'll add more features to the autoconfiguration tool to avoid any possible errors.
After all, the autoconfiguration tool could also be configured and customized to be used only with the provided sources. While this doesn't provide the best upgrade, it does help.
The default kernel that I had with RH6.2 came with RAID. I don't need that. An autoconfiguration tool would get rid of it for me.
I think that it may be better for people to look at it from a different perspective.
I believe that Aunt Tillie shouldn't go messing around with kernel configurations and upgrades. That's why I'd rather have her use "approved" scripts and software.
Autoconfiguration would keep her out of the sensitive areas of her computer. It'd be just like a car. These days, cars are so detailed and sensitive, that you need complex computers to fine tune them.
Autoconfiguration tools protect her from herself, and do not give her the freedom to mess around with things.
"You're right; nobody should have to ever recompile their kernel.
I mean, look at how good Windows is! That loads all sorts of crap that people aren't using, and it performs well and is rock-sollidly stable!"
I may misunderstand you, but I'll say this just in case. I think that the other poster is trying to say that in an ideal world, nobody should need to recompile, because the kernel should be a perfect fit as it is. I don't think that he's saying that it is perfect fit right now. It seems that he's just speaking about an ideal world.
Re:The first Slashdot troll post investigation
on
KaZaa Suspends Downloads
·
· Score: -1, Offtopic
Hi.
Thanks for your time and research. I appreciate you speaking out on issues like this.
Re:This is a sign of some sort of cultural deficie
on
Goodbye, "Majestic"
·
· Score: 1
You said, "and instead we can focus our attention to something else like entertainment.".
Entertainment is good. Don't get me wrong. Entertainment is valuable for all levels of society, and time periods.
You also said, "We will be left with nothing to do but to entertain ourselves again.".
I'm so sure that there will be nothing to do. Unfortunately, once in a while, we will have to often reinvent the wheel, metaphorically speaking. After all, people don't always learn from history, and historical records are often lost. Therefore it is possible and most likely that we will have to learn things over again. Also bear in mind that as each new person is born there is a lot of learning that needs to be relearned. Just because we know that 2+2==4, doesn't mean that a child can avoid learning it.
Another thing is that just about every physical item is consumable. That means we will have to replace things that get worn out or no longer serve us efficiently.
There is no guarantee that there will be nothing to do.
Also bear in mind that society doesn't necessarily get better and better *only*. Sometimes it gets worse and needs to be rebuilt.
Re:This is a sign of some sort of cultural deficie
on
Goodbye, "Majestic"
·
· Score: 1
Actually, yes it is. Learning, about the way the world around us is, is a good use of our time. Hearing different views on issues helps to clarify things.
No, we don't have to just ramble on and complain, but it certainly does help to hear counsel on the issues so that we could make better decisions.
Re:This is a sign of some sort of cultural deficie
on
Goodbye, "Majestic"
·
· Score: 1
I would have to agree with you. We, North Americans spend too much of our resources on impractical things. Our biggest complaints are lack of freedom to do this or that or whatever. Don't get me wrong, freedom is good.
We should try to find something useful to do with our time.
It is true that learning institutions should be about teaching and learning, and not *only* profits. However, that doesn't mean profit is a bad thing.
Just because instutionalized education is a "necessity", as some like to describe it, it doesn't mean that it should cost the tax payer bundles of money. After all, you have to eat, right? Well, that doesn't mean that we should pay your grocery bills just because it is a necessity, does it?
Likewise it would be ideal for people to pay for their needs themselves, or find creative ways of succeeding in life. Has every success in life come from a college or university? People too poor to go to university or college, could borrow books, read somebody else's class notes or something else creative. I'm not saying that those are the only solutions. I'm just thinking off the top of my head and brainstorming. Please don't flame. But I digress.
The main reasons for institutions to start making money is to give back to the public or to reduce the cost to the public. As it is tuition is quite high. If corporations want to take work from the institutions, then they should pay for it to help subsidize the efforts of university students. Some profit can go the ones creating the work, while the rest can go to the insitution.
This type of a system allows for a corporation to support the institution in an area where the institution actually contributes to society. This allows the institution to focus on what there is a demand for. Isn't that what the free market is all about?
The hybrid system that I have in mind would allow for an institution and students to sell what they can, but not necessarily require it in all areas. It would also require that all students copyright their work so that it would be harder for institutions to abuse the system.
For the pessimistic readers, bear in mind that there are private institutions and whatnot, that focus *only* on profits, and they suffer for it, because their reputions will precede them and people won't go there anymore.
Another interesting point is that although food is regarded as a necessity, people in US and Canada often eat more than they need too, and at a more "luxurious" way than they need to. I use "luxurious" because I can't think of the appropriate word. Let's face it, how often do we eat only what we need, as opposed to junk food, coffee, pop and other items. Chips? Anybody? The reason that I bring this up, is because in institutions, we also wish to consume more than we need. This isn't a bad thing. It's alright in general. However, people who want more education, and other "educational luxuries" should pay more. That's the way that things are in life. That's the basis of the free market.
In short, we should have institutions for teaching and learning, and allow them to make profits, but not make profits at the expense of learning.
You said, "Will universities get to the point where students will have to sign NDAs and non-competes for after graduation? Will wealthier institutions pursue graduates who seem to have 'borrowed' bits of code they worked on in CS101 during their freshman years? That kind of scares me...".
It kind of scares me too. I never really thought about it. Perhaps a good alternative is to require that all work be copyrighted by their owner(s). This will prevent the teachers from forcing things into the public domain just to get a good mark.
Don't get me wrong, there will always be ways around this, but every little bit helps.
In general, I'm very in favour of being able to sell work. The students and the universities should be *allowed* to make money so that they can pay for tuition or other expenses.
I believe that this is concept is good overall, because it is important that people be able to filter content coming in. After all, just because someone says something, doesn't mean it is a legitimate view point.
Some might argue that we should expose ourselves to as many views as possible. I would disagree with them. There are times when a man can be right and not need anymore discussion. At those times, he should be allowed to save his time by not reading any more on the issue. One way of doing this is to filter out people who have nothing practical to contribute, time after time after time.
Sure, there will be people who abuse this concept and will block off more than they should. However, in general, we will all be better off, just as in a free market people are allowed to fail, and are forced to deal with it themselves.
Another suggestion:have *potential* friend and foe
on
Slashdot Code Update
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
If I've listened to the same tired, lame arguement, I'd appreciate the opportunity to make him foe. However, if I haven't decided yet, then I'd like to mark him as a potential foe. This way, if he continues to abuse my patience and good will, I can choose to make him as foe.
On the other hand, if someone continually says something that I agree with, I'd also mark him as foe, not because I dislike him or agree with him. It would be because it's no use wasting my time reading something I already believe in. If you already believe in what the pastor preaches, do you really have to listen to it Sunday after Sunday? Aren't there so many other things in life to learn?
...would be to start off by just putting the cds on the library shelves for users who already know what they are doing. As it is, there *doesn't* *always* *seem* to be enough documentation on the web that is easy to understand. If you want to help by documenting, try contributing to the companies that already have some and make suggestions. My concern is that people may try this library idea and make some documention, but not see it all the way through because it is too big a task.
If they need docs we could always leave them urls and let them *try* *to* get what they need online. It probably wouldn't help too many people, but the idea is to not waste much time doing things that don't guarantee results.
I remember when I was in Calgary and wanted to get my computer hooked up the dialup, I had to go to the library to get a Linux cd. It would have been easier if we had a updated version.
I agree with the above statement, but I would like to add a couple of ideas.
Take transit to work, because the extra walking each day makes a big difference. If the bus is near your home, then find a farther bus route with less people riding the route. [I realize that the idea of transit was touched on in the above post, but I wanted to state it in a firmer way]
Also, try eating brown rice, lentils [or beans or other legumes], and tofu. You still get protein, carbs and other nutrients, for a rounded diet, but the added effect is that it actually suppresses appetite more than anything that I know. The rice and lentils really slow things down in the digestive tract.
You'd still eat fruits and vegetables to get other nutrients. Go to
For more information, go to your public library and read about how to prepare beans for tasty, gas-free meals.
To put things into persective, in my first year of college, I used to be this 120lb weakling who could eat a large plate of salad, a large plate of the main meal, a dessert, 2 measured cups of drink, and a bowl of soup. That's pretty gross. Anyways, I began to eat healthier and healthier as time went on. About 10 years later [just recently] I began to eat the rice, lentils [sometimes red kidney beans], and tofu. I was really surprised at how little I ate in a day. Sometimes a bowl of poridge and some friut would last me the whole day. Other times, I ate other things. I eventually lost some weight. I went from this 120 lb weakling to 116 lb weakling--not that it is good or anything. I'm trying to gain weight through exercise.
I'm not saying that this will be easy, but I think that this will work for most people, because the taste of the food alone is enough to suppress most appetites. Also, you'll have to do more than these things, but this type of a life style will help to make it easier for you to maintain a healthy weight.
My brother bought a 80 gallon (approx.) fish tank. Because he got bored of it after a while, I ended up taking care of it. From my exerience, I've always kept the tank heater at the lowest setting, and the tank's temperature is usually right in the middle of where it should be. Unfortunately, I can't remember what that number is, because I busted the thermometer so long ago.
Anyways, it all depends on how hot your room and computer is.
As for keeping the hoses clean, use an under-gravel filter combined with a power head, and some tubes. I would recommend exposing the water to some air before it goes back into the tank. This will oxygenate it and help to stablize the temperature.
Algae is a bit of a problem, but it all depends on the type of algae you have local to your area. It should be easy to take care of if you have a pipe cleaner.
The biggest problem I see with it, is that you shouldn't be using metal tubes and devices to pass the water through. The metals might leave deposits and/or trace amounts. It still might be useful however, to put a coil of rubber tube in the computer to let it absorb heat from the air inside the computer. I doubt that it is what you're looking for, but I'm sure that it would make a difference.
It is definitely too bad that the site had to close down. I think that it would be good to have a site where someone can devote time to reviewing software and hardware.
Unfortunately, knowledge, research and experimentation cost money. Perhaps a site should start charging users for the opportunity to make use of the information.
There ain't no such thing as a free lunch. From the web site's main page, I get the impression that the people running the site are the ones who paid for it.
Red Hat and M$ accuse each other of being followers instead of innovators. I consider this to a display of bad "sportsmanship". In a free market, people should be able to take a product and try to get it to the consumer at a much cheaper price. Could you imagine being told that you couldn't sell water melons because somebody already sold them first?
Don't get me wrong. I think that it is good to have patents and copy rights. However, criticizing a company for making software that reproduces the functionality of yours is not in keeping with the principles of a free market.
This is also true for M$. If they want to take somebody else's idea, then they should go ahead and do it. The only issue is whether or not the copied work is copy righted or is even copy rightable.
I use RH6.2 because it's free and a few other reasons, not because it crashes less often than M$. I personally want software that works better than [or as well as] M$ software. So if Red Hat or somebody else creates something cheaper than M$ and is good enough in quality, then who is anybody to complain?
Sincerely, and with thanks,
Eugene T.S. Wong
How far will this go?
on
Patented Seeds
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
It should be interesting to see how things will turn out for society as a whole.
Imagine having a GPL-like ownership on a corn seed. If you were a truely benevolent organization, you could share your ideas with starving villages over seas.
I guess that's no different than now, but in the future there may be more information available to encourage people to try out new breeding. It's similar to creating an OS. Right now there is more information available to more people, therefore it isn't as difficult as it once may have been to role out a new OS.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that from an economic stand point, these patents will encourage companies to make better breeds of food. With more information, more people will begin to breed or genetically engineer their own seed. After that their ideas could be patented in a GPL-like way so that corporations couldn't control how the seed will be used.
On the other hand, it's not as if the world is starving because of greedy corporations. Usually this comes about because of bad politics and bad economics.
It is noteworthy to point out that having one's own patent for a seed, wouldn't really help much if you have trouble getting into these countries--whether it would be because of politics or health issues [such as malaria or whatever diseases are passed by mosquitos].
To sum things up, I'm generally in favour of patents for seeds and such things.
I went to install a clapper in our Honda last week, which used to be kind of an elegant hack (like an audio hot-wiring of your car), only to find out that additional expensive audio equipment and modules were required, due to the anti-theft system on the vehicle, where the car's computer would not let it clap-on, unless it received the right code from the magnetic encoding on the key! In order to install a clapper, you have to actually put a spare key to the vehicle *in* the add-on module to let the car clapper clap-on. Yeah, that makes me more comfortable, leaving a key installed in the remote car clapper. That sucker went back to the store pretty quickly, that's way too much work, when a dealership can do it for me. Is the slight reduction in risk of theft of your vehicle, worth that much loss of freedom of beer and clapping? I want to clap!
Carbeurators, and the other mechanical systems which were fairly standard and visible and self-evident, really seem to be the equivalent of
'open source', while the new computer-based systems seem to be more closed and proprietary. I know in the early days of cars with computers, there were third party ROM upgrades for performance clapping. There's a project underway to have 'open source' specifications which would allow a user to hook up their car to their computer. There is much mention of/dev/car. Their new specifications would bring new meaning to "information highway". Check it out:
It almost seems like a Microsoft-like statement, to tell you they're doing all of this to reduce theft, while really they're doing it to ensure you are forced into coming back to their dealerships...
For what it's worth, I can get RH 6.2 installed on the computer with less than 500 MB and still have space left over, *and* still have X with a few window managers.
I installed another hard drive mounted it as/usr/local and installed a few programs like Netscape, Word Perfect, RealPlayer and perhaps a few other minor ones.
You can see that my set up probably won't meet the needs of most users, but for those who only want the basics, then no problem. For me, installing RH 6.2 wasn't difficult. It was just annoying to have to select each package to ensure that I got what I wanted--a basic system. Why would RH want to give us 2 ftp clients, a couple of dhcp clients, and a bunch of news group readers? It doesn't make sense. I just want the "best" one. Linux gurus, at this point, will tell me, "The 'best' one is dependant on what your needs are.". Well, if I'm not able to list out my needs, or not intelligent enough to list them out, then that should tell you something about me and what my needs probably are. It's not as if I'll only be limited to the basic installation. I'll probably learn how to install stuff afterwards.
Slashdot Mirror
I, like many others, see this as a good thing because I believe that AOL will be able to compete better with M$.
Even if M$ weren't so powerful, it would still be good, be AOL could offer a more complete service.
My only concern would be that the RH advantages that we have now, would be lost if there is a take over. However, I don't think that that would be too significant, because it isn't as if AOL could force people to not have certain features.
After all that's the beauty of Linux.
Actually, I think that the Linux community will adapt in some way to help people with problems. Maybe they'll add more features to the autoconfiguration tool to avoid any possible errors.
After all, the autoconfiguration tool could also be configured and customized to be used only with the provided sources. While this doesn't provide the best upgrade, it does help.
The default kernel that I had with RH6.2 came with RAID. I don't need that. An autoconfiguration tool would get rid of it for me.
I think that it may be better for people to look at it from a different perspective.
I believe that Aunt Tillie shouldn't go messing around with kernel configurations and upgrades. That's why I'd rather have her use "approved" scripts and software.
Autoconfiguration would keep her out of the sensitive areas of her computer. It'd be just like a car. These days, cars are so detailed and sensitive, that you need complex computers to fine tune them.
Autoconfiguration tools protect her from herself, and do not give her the freedom to mess around with things.
You said to the other poster:
"You're right; nobody should have to ever recompile their kernel.
I mean, look at how good Windows is! That loads all sorts of crap that people aren't using, and it performs well and is rock-sollidly stable!"
I may misunderstand you, but I'll say this just in case. I think that the other poster is trying to say that in an ideal world, nobody should need to recompile, because the kernel should be a perfect fit as it is. I don't think that he's saying that it is perfect fit right now. It seems that he's just speaking about an ideal world.
Hi.
Thanks for your time and research. I appreciate you speaking out on issues like this.
You said, "and instead we can focus our attention to something else like entertainment.".
Entertainment is good. Don't get me wrong. Entertainment is valuable for all levels of society, and time periods.
You also said, "We will be left with nothing to do but to entertain ourselves again.".
I'm so sure that there will be nothing to do. Unfortunately, once in a while, we will have to often reinvent the wheel, metaphorically speaking. After all, people don't always learn from history, and historical records are often lost. Therefore it is possible and most likely that we will have to learn things over again. Also bear in mind that as each new person is born there is a lot of learning that needs to be relearned. Just because we know that 2+2==4, doesn't mean that a child can avoid learning it.
Another thing is that just about every physical item is consumable. That means we will have to replace things that get worn out or no longer serve us efficiently.
There is no guarantee that there will be nothing to do.
Also bear in mind that society doesn't necessarily get better and better *only*. Sometimes it gets worse and needs to be rebuilt.
Actually, yes it is. Learning, about the way the world around us is, is a good use of our time. Hearing different views on issues helps to clarify things.
No, we don't have to just ramble on and complain, but it certainly does help to hear counsel on the issues so that we could make better decisions.
I would have to agree with you. We, North Americans spend too much of our resources on impractical things. Our biggest complaints are lack of freedom to do this or that or whatever. Don't get me wrong, freedom is good.
We should try to find something useful to do with our time.
It is true that learning institutions should be about teaching and learning, and not *only* profits. However, that doesn't mean profit is a bad thing.
Just because instutionalized education is a "necessity", as some like to describe it, it doesn't mean that it should cost the tax payer bundles of money. After all, you have to eat, right? Well, that doesn't mean that we should pay your grocery bills just because it is a necessity, does it?
Likewise it would be ideal for people to pay for their needs themselves, or find creative ways of succeeding in life. Has every success in life come from a college or university? People too poor to go to university or college, could borrow books, read somebody else's class notes or something else creative. I'm not saying that those are the only solutions. I'm just thinking off the top of my head and brainstorming. Please don't flame. But I digress.
The main reasons for institutions to start making money is to give back to the public or to reduce the cost to the public. As it is tuition is quite high. If corporations want to take work from the institutions, then they should pay for it to help subsidize the efforts of university students. Some profit can go the ones creating the work, while the rest can go to the insitution.
This type of a system allows for a corporation to support the institution in an area where the institution actually contributes to society. This allows the institution to focus on what there is a demand for. Isn't that what the free market is all about?
The hybrid system that I have in mind would allow for an institution and students to sell what they can, but not necessarily require it in all areas. It would also require that all students copyright their work so that it would be harder for institutions to abuse the system.
For the pessimistic readers, bear in mind that there are private institutions and whatnot, that focus *only* on profits, and they suffer for it, because their reputions will precede them and people won't go there anymore.
Another interesting point is that although food is regarded as a necessity, people in US and Canada often eat more than they need too, and at a more "luxurious" way than they need to. I use "luxurious" because I can't think of the appropriate word. Let's face it, how often do we eat only what we need, as opposed to junk food, coffee, pop and other items. Chips? Anybody? The reason that I bring this up, is because in institutions, we also wish to consume more than we need. This isn't a bad thing. It's alright in general. However, people who want more education, and other "educational luxuries" should pay more. That's the way that things are in life. That's the basis of the free market.
In short, we should have institutions for teaching and learning, and allow them to make profits, but not make profits at the expense of learning.
You said, "Will universities get to the point where students will have to sign NDAs and non-competes for after graduation? Will wealthier institutions pursue graduates who seem to have 'borrowed' bits of code they worked on in CS101 during their freshman years? That kind of scares me...".
It kind of scares me too. I never really thought about it. Perhaps a good alternative is to require that all work be copyrighted by their owner(s). This will prevent the teachers from forcing things into the public domain just to get a good mark.
Don't get me wrong, there will always be ways around this, but every little bit helps.
In general, I'm very in favour of being able to sell work. The students and the universities should be *allowed* to make money so that they can pay for tuition or other expenses.
You are absolutely right. If you look at the standard of living in US and Canada for the average "oppressed" person, we can hardly complain.
I would rather live here with the possibility of failure than in a controlled market system, where there *might* be a chance of success.
That's a good idea, because people may have insight in one area but very little sense in another.
I believe that this is concept is good overall, because it is important that people be able to filter content coming in. After all, just because someone says something, doesn't mean it is a legitimate view point.
Some might argue that we should expose ourselves to as many views as possible. I would disagree with them. There are times when a man can be right and not need anymore discussion. At those times, he should be allowed to save his time by not reading any more on the issue. One way of doing this is to filter out people who have nothing practical to contribute, time after time after time.
Sure, there will be people who abuse this concept and will block off more than they should. However, in general, we will all be better off, just as in a free market people are allowed to fail, and are forced to deal with it themselves.
If I've listened to the same tired, lame arguement, I'd appreciate the opportunity to make him foe. However, if I haven't decided yet, then I'd like to mark him as a potential foe. This way, if he continues to abuse my patience and good will, I can choose to make him as foe.
On the other hand, if someone continually says something that I agree with, I'd also mark him as foe, not because I dislike him or agree with him. It would be because it's no use wasting my time reading something I already believe in. If you already believe in what the pastor preaches, do you really have to listen to it Sunday after Sunday? Aren't there so many other things in life to learn?
Sincerely, and with thanks,
Eugene T.S. Wong
...would be to start off by just putting the cds on the library shelves for users who already know what they are doing. As it is, there *doesn't* *always* *seem* to be enough documentation on the web that is easy to understand. If you want to help by documenting, try contributing to the companies that already have some and make suggestions. My concern is that people may try this library idea and make some documention, but not see it all the way through because it is too big a task.
If they need docs we could always leave them urls and let them *try* *to* get what they need online. It probably wouldn't help too many people, but the idea is to not waste much time doing things that don't guarantee results.
I remember when I was in Calgary and wanted to get my computer hooked up the dialup, I had to go to the library to get a Linux cd. It would have been easier if we had a updated version.
Sincerely, and with thanks,
Eugene T.S. Wong
I agree with the above statement, but I would like to add a couple of ideas.
Take transit to work, because the extra walking each day makes a big difference. If the bus is near your home, then find a farther bus route with less people riding the route. [I realize that the idea of transit was touched on in the above post, but I wanted to state it in a firmer way]
Also, try eating brown rice, lentils [or beans or other legumes], and tofu. You still get protein, carbs and other nutrients, for a rounded diet, but the added effect is that it actually suppresses appetite more than anything that I know. The rice and lentils really slow things down in the digestive tract.
You'd still eat fruits and vegetables to get other nutrients. Go to
www.5aday.org
www.dole5aday.com for kids, but still has good information
For more information, go to your public library and read about how to prepare beans for tasty, gas-free meals.
To put things into persective, in my first year of college, I used to be this 120lb weakling who could eat a large plate of salad, a large plate of the main meal, a dessert, 2 measured cups of drink, and a bowl of soup. That's pretty gross. Anyways, I began to eat healthier and healthier as time went on. About 10 years later [just recently] I began to eat the rice, lentils [sometimes red kidney beans], and tofu. I was really surprised at how little I ate in a day. Sometimes a bowl of poridge and some friut would last me the whole day. Other times, I ate other things. I eventually lost some weight. I went from this 120 lb weakling to 116 lb weakling--not that it is good or anything. I'm trying to gain weight through exercise.
I'm not saying that this will be easy, but I think that this will work for most people, because the taste of the food alone is enough to suppress most appetites. Also, you'll have to do more than these things, but this type of a life style will help to make it easier for you to maintain a healthy weight.
Sincerely, and with thanks,
Eugene T.S. Wong
My brother bought a 80 gallon (approx.) fish tank. Because he got bored of it after a while, I ended up taking care of it. From my exerience, I've always kept the tank heater at the lowest setting, and the tank's temperature is usually right in the middle of where it should be. Unfortunately, I can't remember what that number is, because I busted the thermometer so long ago.
Anyways, it all depends on how hot your room and computer is.
As for keeping the hoses clean, use an under-gravel filter combined with a power head, and some tubes. I would recommend exposing the water to some air before it goes back into the tank. This will oxygenate it and help to stablize the temperature.
Algae is a bit of a problem, but it all depends on the type of algae you have local to your area. It should be easy to take care of if you have a pipe cleaner.
The biggest problem I see with it, is that you shouldn't be using metal tubes and devices to pass the water through. The metals might leave deposits and/or trace amounts. It still might be useful however, to put a coil of rubber tube in the computer to let it absorb heat from the air inside the computer. I doubt that it is what you're looking for, but I'm sure that it would make a difference.
I'd be interested in hearing how you make out.
Sincerely, and with thanks,
Eugene T.S. Wong
It is definitely too bad that the site had to close down. I think that it would be good to have a site where someone can devote time to reviewing software and hardware.
Unfortunately, knowledge, research and experimentation cost money. Perhaps a site should start charging users for the opportunity to make use of the information.
There ain't no such thing as a free lunch. From the web site's main page, I get the impression that the people running the site are the ones who paid for it.
Sincerely, and with thanks,
Eugene T.S. Wong
Red Hat and M$ accuse each other of being followers instead of innovators. I consider this to a display of bad "sportsmanship". In a free market, people should be able to take a product and try to get it to the consumer at a much cheaper price. Could you imagine being told that you couldn't sell water melons because somebody already sold them first?
Don't get me wrong. I think that it is good to have patents and copy rights. However, criticizing a company for making software that reproduces the functionality of yours is not in keeping with the principles of a free market.
This is also true for M$. If they want to take somebody else's idea, then they should go ahead and do it. The only issue is whether or not the copied work is copy righted or is even copy rightable.
I use RH6.2 because it's free and a few other reasons, not because it crashes less often than M$. I personally want software that works better than [or as well as] M$ software. So if Red Hat or somebody else creates something cheaper than M$ and is good enough in quality, then who is anybody to complain?
Sincerely, and with thanks,
Eugene T.S. Wong
It should be interesting to see how things will turn out for society as a whole.
Imagine having a GPL-like ownership on a corn seed. If you were a truely benevolent organization, you could share your ideas with starving villages over seas.
I guess that's no different than now, but in the future there may be more information available to encourage people to try out new breeding. It's similar to creating an OS. Right now there is more information available to more people, therefore it isn't as difficult as it once may have been to role out a new OS.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that from an economic stand point, these patents will encourage companies to make better breeds of food. With more information, more people will begin to breed or genetically engineer their own seed. After that their ideas could be patented in a GPL-like way so that corporations couldn't control how the seed will be used.
On the other hand, it's not as if the world is starving because of greedy corporations. Usually this comes about because of bad politics and bad economics.
It is noteworthy to point out that having one's own patent for a seed, wouldn't really help much if you have trouble getting into these countries--whether it would be because of politics or health issues [such as malaria or whatever diseases are passed by mosquitos].
To sum things up, I'm generally in favour of patents for seeds and such things.
Sincerely, and with thanks,
Eugene T.S. Wong
...what about the clapper?
/dev/car. Their new specifications would bring new meaning to "information highway". Check it out:
I went to install a clapper in our Honda last week, which used to be kind of an elegant hack (like an audio hot-wiring of your car), only to find out that additional expensive audio equipment and modules were required, due to the anti-theft system on the vehicle, where the car's computer would not let it clap-on, unless it received the right code from the magnetic encoding on the key! In order to install a clapper, you have to actually put a spare key to the vehicle *in* the add-on module to let the car clapper clap-on. Yeah, that makes me more comfortable, leaving a key installed in the remote car clapper. That sucker went back to the store pretty quickly, that's way too much work, when a dealership can do it for me. Is the slight reduction in risk of theft of your vehicle, worth that much loss of freedom of beer and clapping? I want to clap!
Carbeurators, and the other mechanical systems which were fairly standard and visible and self-evident, really seem to be the equivalent of 'open source', while the new computer-based systems seem to be more closed and proprietary. I know in the early days of cars with computers, there were third party ROM upgrades for performance clapping. There's a project underway to have 'open source' specifications which would allow a user to hook up their car to their computer. There is much mention of
http://carnix.sourceforge.net/
It almost seems like a Microsoft-like statement, to tell you they're doing all of this to reduce theft, while really they're doing it to ensure you are forced into coming back to their dealerships...
For what it's worth, I can get RH 6.2 installed on the computer with less than 500 MB and still have space left over, *and* still have X with a few window managers. I installed another hard drive mounted it as /usr/local and installed a few programs like Netscape, Word Perfect, RealPlayer and perhaps a few other minor ones.
You can see that my set up probably won't meet the needs of most users, but for those who only want the basics, then no problem. For me, installing RH 6.2 wasn't difficult. It was just annoying to have to select each package to ensure that I got what I wanted--a basic system. Why would RH want to give us 2 ftp clients, a couple of dhcp clients, and a bunch of news group readers? It doesn't make sense. I just want the "best" one. Linux gurus, at this point, will tell me, "The 'best' one is dependant on what your needs are.". Well, if I'm not able to list out my needs, or not intelligent enough to list them out, then that should tell you something about me and what my needs probably are. It's not as if I'll only be limited to the basic installation. I'll probably learn how to install stuff afterwards.