I think a more apt analogy would be this: I build a fancy egg timer which consists of a core software device, along with a bunch of really attractive features such as a bunch of LEDs that blink "I LOVE U" in alternating colors, and an exterior subtly designed to look like a spaceship, or a rooster, or whatever, along with a plug-in module that calculates the time it takes to cook ac thighs on a grill. I release this whole thing under the GPL, and put it out there.
Now imagine an investor comes out there and says, "Nice egg timer. We're ok with the core software being GPLed, but we want to have more control over the LEDs and the shell." So anyone who wants can still develop their own features to hang off the core software device - that still hasn't changed. But to please the investor, who will lend my egg timer a great deal of credibility and exposure, the LEDs and the rooster skin are now proprietary.
What do I do? Again, a question I am glad that I personally didn't have to answer.
Good point - actually I agree with you. But there is a balance of keeping the devil of Redmond out, while gaining less in terms of exposure versus developing a superior product which might actually gain a larger user base. I still prefer the GPL, but if changing the license was what it took to get Intel on board... I don't know. Fortunately, it wasn't my decision. I can't say what I would have done.
Whew. Actually, since they are changing the licensing for their modules only to the XFree86 license and not the entire Mono, I don't think we will see too much trouble. Besides, it's not like the X license is all that bad now, is it?
Not a bad point, actually. I don't imagine that you could run all the packets through some 500-line list of various netfilter errata. What I had in mind would be more like
iptables -A INPUT -s --source-mac [mac address of my allowed devices] -j ACCEPT
iptables -P INPUT DROP iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -o [er, whatever the interface is called] -j MASQUERADE
Not neccessarily complete or accurate in terms of syntax, but you get the gist. Nothing requiring too much memory usage, but enough to ensure you can limit the use of the access point to trusted devices.
I mean, come on... I get 3mbps internet for $25, full-featured cable tv (if I actually wanted it) for about $35 complete with on-demand programming and premium channels, and my local phone service is $21 per month. AOL is looking more and more like M$ V2.0. Can someone please explain why on earth I would want to pay almost three times as much to an out of town company who is known to provide crap software and service? (If you are wondering about the software part, ever have to deal with a winbox that had had an "AOL Adapter" installed?)
Re:One avenue to take if you don't like what they
on
Monsanto and PCBs
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· Score: 1
Good point. It is sometimes easy to forget the distinction between business practices which are abhorrent and those that are lethal. Thanks.
One avenue to take if you don't like what they did
on
Monsanto and PCBs
·
· Score: 4, Informative
If you look at the article, there's an email this story link which enables you to send the story off to someone of your choice, along with comments. My choices were: NPR and PBS, both organizations which rely heavily upon corporate donations, notably the Monsanto Corporation. In the comments, I requested that they consider refusing donations from Monsanto, which would have the dual effect of making a public stand for what is right as well as denying Monsanto a hefty tax write-off. Like they need it. I agree with a previous poster who compared them to Microsoft. No doubt a merger is in the works:) Other good choices for the email link would, of course, be your state and national representatives, particularly if you live in a state which Monsanto has operations in (Like, almost anywhere?) Fortunately, the Post is a big paper with a good reputation. Stories like this need to see the bright light of day. It is what evildoers fear most.
Re:Where the hell is Microsoft's PR agency?
on
al Qaeda Hacks XP?
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· Score: 1
According to Desler, Microsoft has rigorous processes in place during the development of Windows to ensure the security and integrity of source code.
Actually, as to the new tulip card issue, the problem with that is that the "cards" are actually integrated with some ancient DEC mainboards I take care of. I can always put extra cards into them, but it quickly turns into a hassle dealing with the second NIC (considering it takes about two hours to recompile a kernel on one of these things when I screw one up, and ordinary configuration is anything but fast)
Of course, it wouldn't hurt at all to just leave them as they are, but what I'm really hoping for is one thing: more effecient IO processing. On machines this old, even a marginal improvement makes a big difference. And on the budget I have to work with, disposal is not an option.
Lol, yeah. I'm just waiting to handle the pleas for help from those who went and did just that. But since I'm no kernel guru, I'll just have to tell them they're on their own. Shoot, I barely understand SCSI on the 2.4 series. What changed?
I have to support some of those old monsters. Does anyone know what the story is on the seperate driver issue? Considering the amount of effort it took to learn how to configure those boogers, I'm a little bummed that all that effort is going to waste.
What folks in Eagle Point hear about what happens in Ashland is often an unclear picture, as you know. I've had my connection since the first couple of nodes went up, and have seen a total of two outages, totalling about four hours downtime - all in the middle of the night, so as to it being shite, I don't know what crybabies came up with that one.
You're absolutely right about the coax vs. fiber debate, but you know what? It works. Really well. Consistently. And for $25 a month. So, like I said, you'll find crybabies everywhere, and most likely they're the only ones making enough noise to get up to Eagle Point. And I am aware of CyberNet. Notice that I use a different ISP:)
Where I live, the city utility department has built fiber loops throughout the city. We get coax to the wall, and bandwidth is about two to three times what ADSL users are getting. Rather than hassle with administering the whole deal, they contract out to local ISPs for the residential users, and run a nice cable TV business on the side. It's put the local giant @home creeps on their heels, as they can't possibly hope to compete with the utilities department. IMHO, this is the way to go: keep money and benefits local. Our tax dollars happily at work. I recognize that this makes me some neo-socialist fruitcake to some here, but how much do they pay for bandwidth? I pay $25 a month, and could do cheaper if I really needed to.
Fact is, Exite@home hoisted itself on its own petard, the broadband bill is DOA in legislation, and those companies smart enough to invest in cable, or better yet, fiber are holding their own. DSL is a nasty expensive way to try to make last centuries' technology perform to the needs of this one. Sorry to all of those out there who are stuck with DSL. Honest.
Are we the ugly stepchild?
on
Mozilla 0.9.5
·
· Score: 2
Seems like OS X is constantly a late release, if it gets released at all. Note that this doesn't just apply to Mozilla. Now, I know there are lots of people out there who will say that it is because OS X (stinks, sucks, fill in your description of choice), but all I can say is that it rocks, especially when compared to the "Classics" not to mention winders. Mebbie the OS X sucks crowd just hasn't tried 10.1 yet.
Seriously, though - I have ran up against problems like a screwball linker in OS X just as much as the next guy. But how many broken versions of, say, GCC have been released? I have to say that it must be due to a bunch of dedicated coders that any OSS works at all - and it works great! But I'd like to see the dev community work more on this platform. Just my 2c.
I first stumbled across lyrics.ch almost four years ago when I was taking a voice class (scoff now, and you may not kiss my ring later), and since then, I've found that that was the only place to find lyrics to many, many songs. Damn greedheads, anyhow.
One thing I wonder about: many of the songs at lyrics.ch are public domain - songs which have been around long enough that there is no copyright on them anymore. Does any intrepid soul have the wherewithal to mirror just those songs? Or will LarryWhoever do it as a public service?
In my town, the city did just what the article mentions, and the result couldn't have been better. First of all, they forced Charter to bring down their rates to a more reasonable level. What the city is offering to residential customers is both television and data, outsourcing the data service through local ISPs. So, for twenty-five bucks a month, I get what often hits 5mbps download and a solid 1mbps upload. The local ISPs are making money (and keeping it local!), with the added benefit that Paul Allen is so pissed off at the local government that he wants to spit. (Some background: we hava a small but impressive Shakespeare Festival, and guess which software vendor is a primary sponsor) Fsck Paul Allen, anyhow.
My take is that as long as the work is properly planned, this is a good idea. And it is quite nice to be able to go to meetings at city hall to suggest changes in your cable TV lineup. Try doing that with charter:)
Hehe. I mean, this could get interesting. Imagine what pranks you could pull - the most obvious would be to "cheat" the sensors so that the casual user would think that all the bathrooms are in use at some critical time - say 7am on finals week! Now waiting to hear the Beowulf joke...
My father is a laywer and here is what his firm sent back:
Oops.
To the notable point that they have "already caved in" my answer would be that, based upon their response, the fighting 'droid company seems intent to deny the softbot company what was rightfully theirs. They got the domain first, and (IANAL disclaimer!) from the docs, I'd have to agree that it doesn't look like cybersquatting. But rather than duke it out, the softbot company is taking the sensible approach:
"Look, you don't have a LEGAL right to our domain. You do have a LOGICAL point about the name thing, however, so let's work out an equitable arrangement to deal with the hassle we will need to go through."
Never confuse what is legal with what is logical.
Actually looks like the mecha guys are taking the bait. Of course, it all depends on how personally and financially important the domain name is to the softbot guy. Since he's only asking five grand, I'd have to say, not much.
I didn't realize a tennis ball deformed that much.
I just read today that Venus Williams hits her serves at 127 mph (which becomes obvious when you watch her opponents try to return them). It would be kinda neat to get a shot like the one of this site of one of her cannon blasts.
Slashdot Mirror
I think a more apt analogy would be this: I build a fancy egg timer which consists of a core software device, along with a bunch of really attractive features such as a bunch of LEDs that blink "I LOVE U" in alternating colors, and an exterior subtly designed to look like a spaceship, or a rooster, or whatever, along with a plug-in module that calculates the time it takes to cook ac thighs on a grill. I release this whole thing under the GPL, and put it out there.
Now imagine an investor comes out there and says, "Nice egg timer. We're ok with the core software being GPLed, but we want to have more control over the LEDs and the shell." So anyone who wants can still develop their own features to hang off the core software device - that still hasn't changed. But to please the investor, who will lend my egg timer a great deal of credibility and exposure, the LEDs and the rooster skin are now proprietary.
What do I do? Again, a question I am glad that I personally didn't have to answer.
Good point - actually I agree with you. But there is a balance of keeping the devil of Redmond out, while gaining less in terms of exposure versus developing a superior product which might actually gain a larger user base. I still prefer the GPL, but if changing the license was what it took to get Intel on board... I don't know. Fortunately, it wasn't my decision. I can't say what I would have done.
- All your code module licensing are belong to us!
Whew.Actually, since they are changing the licensing for their modules only to the XFree86 license and not the entire Mono, I don't think we will see too much trouble. Besides, it's not like the X license is all that bad now, is it?
- iptables -A INPUT -s --source-mac [mac address of my allowed devices] -j ACCEPT
Not neccessarily complete or accurate in terms of syntax, but you get the gist. Nothing requiring too much memory usage, but enough to ensure you can limit the use of the access point to trusted devices.iptables -P INPUT DROP
iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -o [er, whatever the interface is called] -j MASQUERADE
A quick thought - iptables on an access point? That I like. Think of all the possiblities...
I mean, come on... I get 3mbps internet for $25, full-featured cable tv (if I actually wanted it) for about $35 complete with on-demand programming and premium channels, and my local phone service is $21 per month. AOL is looking more and more like M$ V2.0. Can someone please explain why on earth I would want to pay almost three times as much to an out of town company who is known to provide crap software and service? (If you are wondering about the software part, ever have to deal with a winbox that had had an "AOL Adapter" installed?)
Good point. It is sometimes easy to forget the distinction between business practices which are abhorrent and those that are lethal. Thanks.
If you look at the article, there's an email this story link which enables you to send the story off to someone of your choice, along with comments. My choices were: NPR and PBS, both organizations which rely heavily upon corporate donations, notably the Monsanto Corporation. In the comments, I requested that they consider refusing donations from Monsanto, which would have the dual effect of making a public stand for what is right as well as denying Monsanto a hefty tax write-off. Like they need it. I agree with a previous poster who compared them to Microsoft. No doubt a merger is in the works :)
Other good choices for the email link would, of course, be your state and national representatives, particularly if you live in a state which Monsanto has operations in (Like, almost anywhere?)
Fortunately, the Post is a big paper with a good reputation. Stories like this need to see the bright light of day. It is what evildoers fear most.
rotfl
Actually, as to the new tulip card issue, the problem with that is that the "cards" are actually integrated with some ancient DEC mainboards I take care of. I can always put extra cards into them, but it quickly turns into a hassle dealing with the second NIC (considering it takes about two hours to recompile a kernel on one of these things when I screw one up, and ordinary configuration is anything but fast)
Of course, it wouldn't hurt at all to just leave them as they are, but what I'm really hoping for is one thing: more effecient IO processing. On machines this old, even a marginal improvement makes a big difference. And on the budget I have to work with, disposal is not an option.
Lol, yeah. I'm just waiting to handle the pleas for help from those who went and did just that. But since I'm no kernel guru, I'll just have to tell them they're on their own. Shoot, I barely understand SCSI on the 2.4 series. What changed?
I have to support some of those old monsters. Does anyone know what the story is on the seperate driver issue? Considering the amount of effort it took to learn how to configure those boogers, I'm a little bummed that all that effort is going to waste.
What folks in Eagle Point hear about what happens in Ashland is often an unclear picture, as you know. I've had my connection since the first couple of nodes went up, and have seen a total of two outages, totalling about four hours downtime - all in the middle of the night, so as to it being shite, I don't know what crybabies came up with that one.
:)
You're absolutely right about the coax vs. fiber debate, but you know what? It works. Really well. Consistently. And for $25 a month. So, like I said, you'll find crybabies everywhere, and most likely they're the only ones making enough noise to get up to Eagle Point.
And I am aware of CyberNet. Notice that I use a different ISP
Where I live, the city utility department has built fiber loops throughout the city. We get coax to the wall, and bandwidth is about two to three times what ADSL users are getting. Rather than hassle with administering the whole deal, they contract out to local ISPs for the residential users, and run a nice cable TV business on the side. It's put the local giant @home creeps on their heels, as they can't possibly hope to compete with the utilities department. IMHO, this is the way to go: keep money and benefits local. Our tax dollars happily at work. I recognize that this makes me some neo-socialist fruitcake to some here, but how much do they pay for bandwidth? I pay $25 a month, and could do cheaper if I really needed to.
If cringely could see the forest for the trees...
Fact is, Exite@home hoisted itself on its own petard, the broadband bill is DOA in legislation, and those companies smart enough to invest in cable, or better yet, fiber are holding their own. DSL is a nasty expensive way to try to make last centuries' technology perform to the needs of this one. Sorry to all of those out there who are stuck with DSL. Honest.
Seems like OS X is constantly a late release, if it gets released at all. Note that this doesn't just apply to Mozilla. Now, I know there are lots of people out there who will say that it is because OS X (stinks, sucks, fill in your description of choice), but all I can say is that it rocks, especially when compared to the "Classics" not to mention winders. Mebbie the OS X sucks crowd just hasn't tried 10.1 yet.
Seriously, though - I have ran up against problems like a screwball linker in OS X just as much as the next guy. But how many broken versions of, say, GCC have been released? I have to say that it must be due to a bunch of dedicated coders that any OSS works at all - and it works great! But I'd like to see the dev community work more on this platform. Just my 2c.
"Connection refused by http://slashdot.org"
I thought it was just me.
I first stumbled across lyrics.ch almost four years ago when I was taking a voice class (scoff now, and you may not kiss my ring later), and since then, I've found that that was the only place to find lyrics to many, many songs. Damn greedheads, anyhow.
One thing I wonder about: many of the songs at lyrics.ch are public domain - songs which have been around long enough that there is no copyright on them anymore. Does any intrepid soul have the wherewithal to mirror just those songs? Or will LarryWhoever do it as a public service?
In my town, the city did just what the article mentions, and the result couldn't have been better. First of all, they forced Charter to bring down their rates to a more reasonable level. What the city is offering to residential customers is both television and data, outsourcing the data service through local ISPs. So, for twenty-five bucks a month, I get what often hits 5mbps download and a solid 1mbps upload. The local ISPs are making money (and keeping it local!), with the added benefit that Paul Allen is so pissed off at the local government that he wants to spit. (Some background: we hava a small but impressive Shakespeare Festival, and guess which software vendor is a primary sponsor) Fsck Paul Allen, anyhow.
:)
My take is that as long as the work is properly planned, this is a good idea. And it is quite nice to be able to go to meetings at city hall to suggest changes in your cable TV lineup. Try doing that with charter
Hehe. I mean, this could get interesting. Imagine what pranks you could pull - the most obvious would be to "cheat" the sensors so that the casual user would think that all the bathrooms are in use at some critical time - say 7am on finals week!
Now waiting to hear the Beowulf joke...
To the notable point that they have "already caved in" my answer would be that, based upon their response, the fighting 'droid company seems intent to deny the softbot company what was rightfully theirs. They got the domain first, and (IANAL disclaimer!) from the docs, I'd have to agree that it doesn't look like cybersquatting. But rather than duke it out, the softbot company is taking the sensible approach: Never confuse what is legal with what is logical.
Actually looks like the mecha guys are taking the bait. Of course, it all depends on how personally and financially important the domain name is to the softbot guy. Since he's only asking five grand, I'd have to say, not much.
Before you flame me, I know the code coming out of this isn't recursive at all. But the insult certainly is. Gives one ideas, doesn't it?