That's just plain stupid. I installed Trend Mail Scan (www.antivirus.com) on our mail server. Automatically strips viruses (including ILOVEYOU) form incoming and outgoing e-mails WITHOUT screwing with anybodies legitimate attachments.
No, this isn't true. The user has to be stupid enough to click on the the attachment. (many users are!) Also, this virus really has very little to do with Outlook Express or with Exchange.
Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft Outlook Express are two different programs. Outlook Express does not support OLE automation. OLE automation is what this Visual Basic virus uses to propogate. It uses OLE automation to read all of the e-mails from your Outlook address book, then sends itself to everyone on that list.
That means this virus WILL affect any Outlook users, whether their mail server is Exchange or Sendmail. Exchange users tend to be hit a bit harder because your address book automatically includes everyone at your Exchange site.
BTW.. Anytime your worried about (or just morbidly curious about) one of these virus scares, I recommend checking out the web sites of any of the major antivirus companies. They usually have pretty detailed information.
This is good news! The Cobalts (Qubes at least, I haven't worked with a RAQ) use a forked version of a really old kernel, and have some wierd limitations. For example, according to Cobalt tech support, thier version of the kernal can only support 256 open file descriptors. Because of that, Samba is set up to only allow 100 simultanious open files. That's fine if your only using it to serve up Word and Excel files, but their are many programs that need that many files open for even 1 user. (almost any Cobal program, for example, including 3 accounting packages I've tried to install on Qubes).
The Qubes are really cool little devices. I'd love to see Cobalt integrate support for thier hardware into the main stream Linux kernel so that Qube users could more easily upgrade to greater functionality. This NetBSD port at least provides one good option for Qube users who are outgrowing the cute little web-interface and need a little more flexibility that what comes "pre-packaged" in the Qube. I'd rather be able to update them to a newer Linux kernel, or better yet a new version of a fairly stock Linux distro, but this is pretty darn good.
"This argument is rather contrived: what's different (at least from the RIAA's point of view) is that this broadcast stream leads to perfect copies. " WRONG!!!!! MP3 is a *lossy* compression algorithm. It throughs out signal quality to decrease file size and tranfer times. MP3's (and any other format that is practical for Internet musci) does NOT create perfect digital copies. (Although, to be fair, it does produce pretty damn good copies!!)
"I make up answers to questions I don't know, because they expect me to have the answers"
No offence man, but that is *totally* uncool.
Not to mention that it's a gigantic red flag to anyone who does have a clue that you are beyond useless.
I know I would much rather hire a guy how *knows* the limitations of his knowledge and is willing to admit it. I certainly would be much more interesting in talking to, and hanging around with him!
Pay serious attention to the behaviour of the wannabees and to the behavior of the true gods like Linus Torvalds, Alan Cox, Larry Wall, or whoever you admire. The true guru's are not afraid to say "I don't know".
There's nothing wrong with not knowing some things. As has been pointed out elsewhere in this thread, this is a HUGE field. NO ONE can know all of it 100%. Just like there are no doctors who specialize in everything.
I guess what I'm trying to say it, don't be shy about admitting what you do know, and what you don't know. You'll be more useful to everyone, and people will respect you a LOT more!
Does anyone out there know a good e-mail/snail mail address to contact Mattel about this matter? A few thousand polite emails from disgruntled Slashdot readers might go a long way toward convincing Mattel that this going to be *very* bad PR.
"Mattel is also seeking the logfiles of the Swedish ISP that hosts the decryption utility, to identify everyone who has downloaded it to date"
When I read this, I just HAD to go download the decryption utility. I don't think I'll *ever* have a copy of that crappy program to run it on thought...
What the hell.. What can they do to you? Demand that you turn it over to Mattel? (Yeah, here it is, I "swear" it's my only copy! )
I have to agree. I hated Geeks in Space the first couple of times I listened to it. I think I was expecting them have some new news or insiteful comments that hadn't previously been published on slashdot.
But after listening for a while (particularly listening at work) I've decided I like it. It's not very "meaty", but it *is* humourous. It's kind of a informal discussion of what's been going on in the Slashdot world lately.
It somewhat reminds me of the way the football commentators start bullshitting about nothing in particular during the slow parts of the game.
I can't believe that LinuxWorld published this lame article. Don't get me wrong, I have no problems with article that are critical of Linux or of Open Source in general. Good constructive criticism is essential to a healthy community.
But this article presents absolutely NO evidence supporting his conclusion that the open source community is headed for trouble. The author really never even gets specific about *what* kind of trouble he thinks we're headed for or why. The whole article is just a bunch of vague whining.
The author is obviously unhappy with the influx of money and Big Business into the Open Source community. That's fine, he certainly has a right to be unhappy. But if your going to write an article full of doom and gloom predictions, you really should have at least *some* evidence or reasoning backing you up!!!
There are 2 parts to Wine: The Wine program loader the most of us have tried at one time or another, and winelib. Applications compiled with Winelib *ARE* native Linux apps, they just use Winelib as thier widget set instead of using something like GTK or QT. Programs compiled with Winelib should run as fast as any other Linux apps.
Corel has stated that their main interest in Wine is in using Winelib to allow their apps to be compiled for either Win32 or Linux/Wine with just a re-compile.
So yes, they are using Wine as a "backend" for thier Linux apps. But they are *native* Linux apps, and should have all of the speed and stability that Corel apps have (or don't have, as the case may be) on any other platform.
It is perfectly legal (and not at *all* uncommon) to "reverse-engineer" trade secret information. As long as you *independently* discovered the information it is perfectly legal.
A good non-computer related example would be the book series "Top Secret Recipes" and their associated web site http://www.topsecretrecipes.com/ . The author of this books "reverse engineers" the recipe to popular commercial food items (Oreos, Wendy's Spicy Chicken Sandwiches, etc). The recipies for most of these products are protected by trade secrets, which prevent employees at the Oreo factory (for example) from telling all their friends how to make Oreos. But trade secret agreements do *not* prevent and independent third party from "discovering" this information for themselves.
Then the GPL shouldn't be in the IP game either. It is the utmost of hypocrisy to decry the evilness of copyrights and then to turn around and enforce the wishes of the GPL with a copyright
Hmm... Unless you have the political clout to force an international treaty that creates a new legal license that is NOT a copyright.... that's not really possible. The only legally recognized options are copyright and public domain.
The GPL is definately imperfect. But criticizing it because it is a *copyright* is just plain stupid.
I'm seeing a lot of messages in this thread whining about who did and did not get "the letter". Most troubling are the messages from people who are complaining about how much they have done for the community, but still haven't got one of "the letters". Lets get realistic here folks. VA, RedHat etc all don't "owe" you one of "the letters". They don't owe you anything. These letters are a *gift* to the community.
No one has a "right" to a gift. No one is "owed" a gift. If you get a gift, be grateful. If you don't, be grateful for all the things you do have.
Neither RedHat, nor VA should ever have to explain *why* they chose the people they did to get the letter. They've done the best the could to identify they people they wanted, for whatever reason, to give thanks to. Obviously this effort cannot be perfect. Some people will be left out. Deal with it.
Cobalt Micro (the Qube guys) only have thier source available on thier FTP server. They don't include a CD, the source is not on the hard drive of the Qube already, and I certainly couldn't find reference to the source in thier docs. Also, while the source *is* available, I was told by tech support that recompiling could void my warrently.
So it seems clear that all you NEED to do is put the source on a public FTP server. You don't have to actually ship it with your product, and you don't have to actually the use of said code.
Now, I realize that this may go against all of the established dogma of the nerd world, but open your minds just a crack and you'll totally understand the SCSL.
Lets suppose that a company exists that can only differentiate itself from its competitors by the intellectual property in its software. While its hardware and service are good, they aren't overwhelmingly compelling, and the only way they can make money is to sell software because its good software and people use it.
Now, why would that company open source its products? So that someone else can use their intellectual property to improve their products?
More importantly, why would anyone want to contribute code to such a product?? That's the problem with the SCSL. No one *wants* to see a code fork, but a true Open Source license gives both the Customers using the software, and the independent developers contributing to the software the assurence that they *can* fork if they have to.
Basically, if it's open source then you know that your software company doesn't have you completely over a barrel. If they start taking the software in a stupid direction, you can get together with other disgruntled users of the package, hire some programmers, and fork.
Have you read the disclaimers that come with medical software?? I work for several small doctors offices here in Southern Colorado. I'm not a programmer, I just install the software they bought. It *all* comes with the same sort of disclaimers that Windows, WordPerfect, etc come with. The shrink wrap licenses on these packages say that the software company is *not* responsable for any failures of the software.
For those newbies who don't know who John "Maddog" Hall is....
He's the Executive Director of Linux International, and a well known Linux advocate and developer. (to give you an idea how well known, a Google search for "John Maddog Hall" turned up 1030 entries. Not many of us can claim to be that well known). According to the www.opensource.org website, he is also one of the creaters of the phrase "opensource".
Here's his bio from the Linux International web site...
Jon "maddog" Hall
Address: 80 Amherst St., Amherst N.H. 03031-3032, U.S.A. E-Mail: maddog@valinux.com Employer: VA Linux Systems
Description: Jon has been in the computer industry for over a quarter century, 17 years of that with UNIX. He has been a software engineer, systems administrator, product manager, marketing manager and professional educator. Before accepting a job at VA Linux Systems working full time for Linux International, Jon was employed by Compaq Computer Corporation in the Digital UNIX Marketing group and Bell Laboratories. Before that he was Department Head of Computer Science at Hartford State Technical College, where his students lovingly (he hopes) gave him the nickname maddog. Maddog as he perfers to be called, has an MS in Computer Science from RPI (1977) and a BS in Commerce and Engineering from Drexel University (1973).
There haven't been many stories on Slashdot about MacMillan because they *don't make a distro*!!! They just re-sell Mandrake. There have been quite a few stories on Slashdot about Mandrake.
I think the key here is most Slashdotters could care less show *sells* the most copies of someone elses distro!!! We care about who makes the best distro. Mandrake is a great distro, and they deserve lots of praise. MacMillan is just a publisher.
I believe the previous poster was refering to the rpmfind tool that can be *downloaded* from rpmfind.net. It's a little text mode tool that lets you search for RPMS and will download them along with all the RPMS they depend on.
I still don't think it's quite as cool at apt. But it does solve the major portion of the problem.
It's not to let you ignore your screwed up whatever. It's to let you boot *one* time without it. Yes, you could do this in single user mode. This just makes it easy to start up your services one at a time if you chose.
The author of this low substance flamebait article never does define what he means by free. Does he mean if Solaris was free in price (like Internet Explorer) or an actual free software license like the GPL or BSD license.
If Solaris was released under a free software license, that *might* give Linux some serious competition, but I don't think it would kill it completely.
If Solaris was just free of charge.... That wouldn't make a lick of difference. Solaris would get some of the media attention that Linux is currently basking in, but who cares? The people who spend their time actually *contributing* to Linux would *still* be contributing to Linux. And that's what really matters. No matter how popular Linux is or isn't, as long as the core community remains strong Linux will survive and prosper. (The same can be said of any free software project).
Slashdot Mirror
That's just plain stupid. I installed Trend Mail Scan (www.antivirus.com) on our mail server. Automatically strips viruses (including ILOVEYOU) form incoming and outgoing e-mails WITHOUT screwing with anybodies legitimate attachments.
No, this isn't true. The user has to be stupid enough to click on the the attachment. (many users are!) Also, this virus really has very little to do with Outlook Express or with Exchange.
Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft Outlook Express are two different programs. Outlook Express does not support OLE automation. OLE automation is what this Visual Basic virus uses to propogate. It uses OLE automation to read all of the e-mails from your Outlook address book, then sends itself to everyone on that list.
That means this virus WILL affect any Outlook users, whether their mail server is Exchange or Sendmail. Exchange users tend to be hit a bit harder because your address book automatically includes everyone at your Exchange site.
BTW.. Anytime your worried about (or just morbidly curious about) one of these virus scares, I recommend checking out the web sites of any of the major antivirus companies. They usually have pretty detailed information.
This is good news! The Cobalts (Qubes at least, I haven't worked with a RAQ) use a forked version of a really old kernel, and have some wierd limitations. For example, according to Cobalt tech support, thier version of the kernal can only support 256 open file descriptors. Because of that, Samba is set up to only allow 100 simultanious open files. That's fine if your only using it to serve up Word and Excel files, but their are many programs that need that many files open for even 1 user. (almost any Cobal program, for example, including 3 accounting packages I've tried to install on Qubes).
The Qubes are really cool little devices. I'd love to see Cobalt integrate support for thier hardware into the main stream Linux kernel so that Qube users could more easily upgrade to greater functionality. This NetBSD port at least provides one good option for Qube users who are outgrowing the cute little web-interface and need a little more flexibility that what comes "pre-packaged" in the Qube. I'd rather be able to update them to a newer Linux kernel, or better yet a new version of a fairly stock Linux distro, but this is pretty darn good.
"This argument is rather contrived: what's different (at least from the RIAA's point of view) is that this broadcast stream leads to perfect copies. " WRONG!!!!! MP3 is a *lossy* compression algorithm. It throughs out signal quality to decrease file size and tranfer times. MP3's (and any other format that is practical for Internet musci) does NOT create perfect digital copies. (Although, to be fair, it does produce pretty damn good copies!!)
I'm surprised no one has mentioned the Project Grizzly Exo-suit yet. http://www.trillium.net/grizzly/
"I make up answers to questions I don't know, because they expect me to have the answers"
No offence man, but that is *totally* uncool.
Not to mention that it's a gigantic red flag to anyone who does have a clue that you are beyond useless.
I know I would much rather hire a guy how *knows* the limitations of his knowledge and is willing to admit it. I certainly would be much more interesting in talking to, and hanging around with him!
Pay serious attention to the behaviour of the wannabees and to the behavior of the true gods like Linus Torvalds, Alan Cox, Larry Wall, or whoever you admire. The true guru's are not afraid to say "I don't know".
There's nothing wrong with not knowing some things. As has been pointed out elsewhere in this thread, this is a HUGE field. NO ONE can know all of it 100%. Just like there are no doctors who specialize in everything.
I guess what I'm trying to say it, don't be shy about admitting what you do know, and what you don't know. You'll be more useful to everyone, and people will respect you a LOT more!
Does anyone out there know a good e-mail/snail mail address to contact Mattel about this matter? A few thousand polite emails from disgruntled Slashdot readers might go a long way toward convincing Mattel that this going to be *very* bad PR.
"Mattel is also seeking the logfiles of the Swedish ISP that hosts the decryption utility, to identify everyone who has downloaded it to date"
When I read this, I just HAD to go download the decryption utility. I don't think I'll *ever* have a copy of that crappy program to run it on thought...
What the hell.. What can they do to you? Demand that you turn it over to Mattel? (Yeah, here it is, I "swear" it's my only copy! )
I have to agree. I hated Geeks in Space the first couple of times I listened to it. I think I was expecting them have some new news or insiteful comments that hadn't previously been published on slashdot.
But after listening for a while (particularly listening at work) I've decided I like it. It's not very "meaty", but it *is* humourous. It's kind of a informal discussion of what's been going on in the Slashdot world lately.
It somewhat reminds me of the way the football commentators start bullshitting about nothing in particular during the slow parts of the game.
I can't believe that LinuxWorld published this lame article. Don't get me wrong, I have no problems with article that are critical of Linux or of Open Source in general. Good constructive criticism is essential to a healthy community.
But this article presents absolutely NO evidence supporting his conclusion that the open source community is headed for trouble. The author really never even gets specific about *what* kind of trouble he thinks we're headed for or why. The whole article is just a bunch of vague whining.
The author is obviously unhappy with the influx of money and Big Business into the Open Source community. That's fine, he certainly has a right to be unhappy. But if your going to write an article full of doom and gloom predictions, you really should have at least *some* evidence or reasoning backing you up!!!
There are 2 parts to Wine: The Wine program loader the most of us have tried at one time or another, and winelib. Applications compiled with Winelib *ARE* native Linux apps, they just use Winelib as thier widget set instead of using something like GTK or QT. Programs compiled with Winelib should run as fast as any other Linux apps.
Corel has stated that their main interest in Wine is in using Winelib to allow their apps to be compiled for either Win32 or Linux/Wine with just a re-compile.
So yes, they are using Wine as a "backend" for thier Linux apps. But they are *native* Linux apps, and should have all of the speed and stability that Corel apps have (or don't have, as the case may be) on any other platform.
Actually, *you* don't get it.
It is perfectly legal (and not at *all* uncommon) to "reverse-engineer" trade secret information. As long as you *independently* discovered the information it is perfectly legal.
A good non-computer related example would be the book series "Top Secret Recipes" and their associated web site http://www.topsecretrecipes.com/ . The author of this books "reverse engineers" the recipe to popular commercial food items (Oreos, Wendy's Spicy Chicken Sandwiches, etc). The recipies for most of these products are protected by trade secrets, which prevent employees at the Oreo factory (for example) from telling all their friends how to make Oreos. But trade secret agreements do *not* prevent and independent third party from "discovering" this information for themselves.
Hmm... Unless you have the political clout to force an international treaty that creates a new legal license that is NOT a copyright.... that's not really possible. The only legally recognized options are copyright and public domain.
The GPL is definately imperfect. But criticizing it because it is a *copyright* is just plain stupid.
I'm seeing a lot of messages in this thread whining about who did and did not get "the letter". Most troubling are the messages from people who are complaining about how much they have done for the community, but still haven't got one of "the letters". Lets get realistic here folks. VA, RedHat etc all don't "owe" you one of "the letters". They don't owe you anything. These letters are a *gift* to the community.
No one has a "right" to a gift. No one is "owed" a gift. If you get a gift, be grateful. If you don't, be grateful for all the things you do have.
Neither RedHat, nor VA should ever have to explain *why* they chose the people they did to get the letter. They've done the best the could to identify they people they wanted, for whatever reason, to give thanks to. Obviously this effort cannot be perfect. Some people will be left out. Deal with it.
And stop acting like a damn spoiled child!!!
Cobalt Micro (the Qube guys) only have thier source available on thier FTP server. They don't include a CD, the source is not on the hard drive of the Qube already, and I certainly couldn't find reference to the source in thier docs. Also, while the source *is* available, I was told by tech support that recompiling could void my warrently.
So it seems clear that all you NEED to do is put the source on a public FTP server. You don't have to actually ship it with your product, and you don't have to actually the use of said code.
Now, I realize that this may go against all of the established dogma of the nerd world, but open your minds just a crack and you'll totally understand the SCSL.
Lets suppose that a company exists that can only differentiate itself from its competitors by the intellectual property in its software. While its hardware and service are good, they aren't overwhelmingly compelling, and the only way they can make money is to sell software because its good software and people use it.
Now, why would that company open source its products? So that someone else can use their intellectual property to improve their products?
More importantly, why would anyone want to contribute code to such a product?? That's the problem with the SCSL. No one *wants* to see a code fork, but a true Open Source license gives both the Customers using the software, and the independent developers contributing to the software the assurence that they *can* fork if they have to.
Basically, if it's open source then you know that your software company doesn't have you completely over a barrel. If they start taking the software in a stupid direction, you can get together with other disgruntled users of the package, hire some programmers, and fork.
Have you read the disclaimers that come with medical software?? I work for several small doctors offices here in Southern Colorado. I'm not a programmer, I just install the software they bought. It *all* comes with the same sort of disclaimers that Windows, WordPerfect, etc come with. The shrink wrap licenses on these packages say that the software company is *not* responsable for any failures of the software.
>has cobalt provided you the source ? just curious.
SRPMS for everything on on their FTP site....
Ah yes? And your such a hotshot programmer?? Why don't you enlighten us by listing some of the programs you've created?
:-)
Didn't think so!
For those newbies who don't know who John "Maddog" Hall is....
He's the Executive Director of Linux International, and a well known Linux advocate and developer. (to give you an idea how well known, a Google search for "John Maddog Hall" turned up 1030 entries. Not many of us can claim to be that well known). According to the www.opensource.org website, he is also one of the creaters of the phrase "opensource".
Here's his bio from the Linux International web site...
Jon "maddog" Hall
Address: 80 Amherst St., Amherst N.H. 03031-3032, U.S.A.
E-Mail: maddog@valinux.com
Employer: VA Linux Systems
Description: Jon has been in the computer industry for over a quarter century, 17 years of that with UNIX. He has been a software engineer, systems administrator, product manager, marketing manager and professional educator. Before accepting a job at VA Linux Systems working full time for Linux International, Jon was employed by Compaq Computer Corporation in the Digital UNIX Marketing group and Bell Laboratories. Before that he was Department Head of Computer Science at Hartford State Technical College, where his students lovingly (he hopes) gave him the nickname maddog. Maddog as he perfers to be called, has an MS in Computer Science from RPI (1977) and a BS in Commerce and Engineering from Drexel University (1973).
Old guy with a beard??? How long have you been using Linux? 3 weeks?
Geesh! Next thing you know we'll have people on here how don't know who Alan Cox is!!
There haven't been many stories on Slashdot about MacMillan because they *don't make a distro*!!! They just re-sell Mandrake. There have been quite a few stories on Slashdot about Mandrake.
I think the key here is most Slashdotters could care less show *sells* the most copies of someone elses distro!!! We care about who makes the best distro. Mandrake is a great distro, and they deserve lots of praise. MacMillan is just a publisher.
I believe the previous poster was refering to the rpmfind tool that can be *downloaded* from rpmfind.net. It's a little text mode tool that lets you search for RPMS and will download them along with all the RPMS they depend on.
I still don't think it's quite as cool at apt. But it does solve the major portion of the problem.
It's not to let you ignore your screwed up whatever. It's to let you boot *one* time without it. Yes, you could do this in single user mode. This just makes it easy to start up your services one at a time if you chose.
The author of this low substance flamebait article never does define what he means by free. Does he mean if Solaris was free in price (like Internet Explorer) or an actual free software license like the GPL or BSD license.
If Solaris was released under a free software license, that *might* give Linux some serious competition, but I don't think it would kill it completely.
If Solaris was just free of charge.... That wouldn't make a lick of difference. Solaris would get some of the media attention that Linux is currently basking in, but who cares? The people who spend their time actually *contributing* to Linux would *still* be contributing to Linux. And that's what really matters. No matter how popular Linux is or isn't, as long as the core community remains strong Linux will survive and prosper. (The same can be said of any free software project).