Seriously. I have no idea how it is that the ReactOS project believes that it has any ability to stand up to MS and the american legal system. MS can grind them through the court system on a million charges (trumped up or otherwise) and bankrupt ReactOS with absolutely no penalty to MS AT ALL.
In the long run, all of the time and energy spent creating ReactOS will end up being for nothing because MS will simply roll over them using the steam roller known as The American Judicial System.
Can we take it that you're willing to volunteer for the job of easing window lusers over to *nix? 'Cos I know I sure as hell won't. I like the fact that using *nix gets me away from having to do n00b tech support. I don't want to see that fucked up!
For years, people on this site have acknowledged that the driver signing feature -while valid at first blush- would inevitably be used to shut out non-microsoft drivers. Now our prediction has finally come true.
On a personal level, if I cannot uses the EXT2IFS drivers on an Vista system to access my linux drives, I will keep my XP cds and simply use XP and not bother about new games (since the games I use are from 2002, I pretty much already have abandoned new games anyway) or new versions of office.
Google has just removed themselves from the market. Sorry, it's just that simple. First off, they sunk far, far, far more into this money-pit than it could even remotely ever be worth. Second, they have -as has been pointed out- left themselves open for an absolutel insane amount of legal liability -and the pockets of the MPAA run far, far deeper than theirs.
With one unbelievably STUPID purchase, google has done what Microsoft probably could never have done...google has removed google from the game.
>As far as representation in the population, U.S. wins that one. As far as gov reps: Jewish, Catholic, Baptist, Unitarian, Scientologist, Quaker, Unspecified...
Think again; you're basically saying that there are Jewish, Christian and 'unspecified'. That's *three*. Sorry, but different sects of the christian faith are still *christian*.
If we had buddhists, muslims and pagans as representatives also, THEN we would be on a par with india; but at this point, we don't.
>I disagree. In short, BSD is for the benefit of developers and GNU is for the benefit of users.
Unless your users want to use GNU tools (QT, Cygwin, etc) in their commercial undertaking, of course. The OpenBSD project has no qualms about anyone making a commercial fork of it (in fact, they even list commerical products based on OpenBSD somewhere on their page); FreeBSD, in turn, is quite proud to have contributed to OS X. To the best of my knowledge neither organisation turned around and demanded (tens of) thousands of dollars (theo's request for help was just that -a request) from people using their projects commercially.
I would completely agree with that. My point (typos aside) is that the GNU license is about as close to being 'free' as Microsoft's Shared Source is; both place undue restrictions upon the user, in stark contrast to genuinely free licenses. This is fine -as long as you're honest about it. But to turn around and say that "our software is free unless you do X, Y or Z with it" is hypocritical and -imho- objectionable in the extreme; particularly when you're going to patronisingly tell me that those reasons are there 'to preserve my freedom'. It's misleading (at best!) wether it's Bush doing it, or wether it's RMS.
>We don't need ya! Don't let the door hit your ass on the way out, kthx.
See, this is a perfect illustration of the different agendas of the BSD and GNU developers. The BSD camp has the attitude of "Do it for free because no one should have to re-invent the wheel". This leads to benefits such as the proliferation of the BSD networking stack which -even though they didn't make a buck off of it- they still benefitted because everyone started from the same -compatible- software base (instead of writing and implementing a zillion half-assed, incompatible solutions). The GNU attitude is "you can't use MY SOFTWARE unless you follow MY AGENDA and play by MY RULES". That would be fine, if these same people were not constantly frothing at the mouth about being "Free As In Freedom" (which, as you can see, means something wholly different coming from them than it does coming from anyone else -say coming from someone who advocates the *total* freedom granted by the BSD license).
In short, BSD is 'free' as in 'free to do whatever you like'; whereas GNU is free as in 'free do it my way or free go to the gulag'.
>I mean Cygwin was free without support last time I checked.
It's been ages since I bothered to look, but I'm pretty sure that cygwin has the same kind of dual-license deal that mysql has. In other words, if you use it commercially, you have to pay.
Gah! Just because we're into Free Software doesn't mean we're a bunch of software pirates. That's the script kids; people who use FOSS generally know the value of a buck and choose FOSS because it provides the best value proposistion to match their requirements. A lot of us have gone from closed-source programs -which we paid for- to FOSS for a variet of reasons. We use FOSS because we appreciate having an OS that we genuinely own and appreciate the advantage that Linus' Law ("many eyes make bugs shallow") gives us.
So please reconsider your words the next time you want to paint us all as basement-dwelling pirate theives; there are a wide variety of FOSS advocates here -and while I'm sure there are theives on this board the vast majority prefer legitamately owning our software.
>What does Slackware offer the newbie Linux user that something like Ubuntu doesn't?
A series of valuble lessons learning the necessity of Reading The Fine Manual.
Apart from that, the time spent learning, tweaking and using slackware gives a good experiential base to go to probably any other Unix-akin and not be completely lost; or at least -having been stuck in slackware and figured out how to get unstuck- provides a good learning background which will put them in a better stead than your wannabe 'click click click you're installed' distributions.
The difference is that Linux is an open-source OS, windows is a closed source one. So, when someone argues that Intel doesn't support OSS, they can point to the fact that a good deal (most?) of their cards do -in fact- run on Linux.
It's not an argument "against theo", it's an argument against expecting Intel to give a shit about what is (in its' eyes) a fringe OS. From Intel's point of view, there simply isn't enough demand to justify changing what they're already doing -- particularly since they're already providing support for Linux.
Seriously, look at who we're talking about. "Shaming" Intel into doing anything is about on a par with "shaming" MS into doing anything. Simply because the numbers don't add up. This is how I see this going:
The OpenBSD Userbase: Give us the hardware specifications or we'll take our business elsewhere! Intel: There's two hundred of you, tops. Fuck off.
This is especially true since --correct me if I'm wrong-- these cards already work in Linux.
Of course, it's also obvious that Theo's "unique" brand of diplomacy does nothing to advance his case.
He has no real leverage to speak of (not when it comes to anything the siez of Intel, at least!); I realistically think he has a chance of pulling this off.
>Their is deffinately balance that should be maintained here, middle class jobs need to stay abundant or people will become infuriated by their lack of self worth....and do what, exactly? Throw a protest? A boycott?
Your post stops right where it should have been beginning; what happens then? From someone living in post-9/11 america, I'll tell you what happense when people become infuriated: sweet fuck-all nothing.
You see, there's no means to hold either the government nor the corporations accountable. The government has the legislation, and the guns, and the strategic advantages (YOU cannot listen in on THEIR phone calls); you aren't going to throw them out, and they fucking well know it.
What are you gonna do -- vote Democrat?!?! Good luck with that, pal. Only someone who doesn't remember the clinton years can pretend that the jackasses are on the side of the worker or the consumer.
Here is the rub; there's nothing ---NOTHING that people can do to change the direction that things are going; we're on a fast train to world serfdom and there ain't shit that can be done to stop it. So let the people "become infuriated", who cares? They don't matter, I don't matter, NO ONE matters. There's no stopping the world wide fascist/feudalism that is barrelling down on us.
Our congressmen and senators look after the welfare of their constiuancy (sp?), and the courts come to a fair and balanced ruling which takes the best interests of the citizens into account and comes to a verdict which is most just for their citizenry.
It's just that now corporations are the only real citizens-- a situation no different than the late 1700's/early 1800s when only the rich white landowners were considered citizens.
Again, I'll ask --the system works; why are you bitching?
Seriously, though; glad to see they had a good turn out for it. Hopefully this will put to rest some of the "NetBSD is irrelevent" crap that's been floating around recently. Particularly since most of the hype appears to merely be sour grapes from people who were on the wrong side of a power struggle and are now trying to tear down the project (as opposed to anyone with a valid beef).
30 developers isn't that bad, really. Not up to FreeBSD numbers, certainly; but it's a good start. Particularly given that this event wasn't really publicised in any real way (there was nothing here, or on the front page of netbsd.org about it in advance).
Sidenote to the guy having problems with his VAX: problems with one archetetcture (sp?) don't indicate that NetBSD is becoming x86-centric; they just indicate that maybe -just maybe- -what with NetBSD being contributer oriented and all- that the bugs just might be beyond the -VAX team's abilities as well.
In a fair world, your post would have hit +5. I don't have anything to add -since you stated it all so well. I just wanted to thank you for articulating so well what we all know in our hearts to be true.
Slashdot Mirror
Seriously. I have no idea how it is that the ReactOS project believes that it has any ability to stand up to MS and the american legal system. MS can grind them through the court system on a million charges (trumped up or otherwise) and bankrupt ReactOS with absolutely no penalty to MS AT ALL.
In the long run, all of the time and energy spent creating ReactOS will end up being for nothing because MS will simply roll over them using the steam roller known as The American Judicial System.
Can we take it that you're willing to volunteer for the job of easing window lusers over to *nix? 'Cos I know I sure as hell won't. I like the fact that using *nix gets me away from having to do n00b tech support. I don't want to see that fucked up!
Why would I want a eudora-branded version of thunderbird when I can simply run thunderbird proper?
For years, people on this site have acknowledged that the driver signing feature -while valid at first blush- would inevitably be used to shut out non-microsoft drivers. Now our prediction has finally come true.
On a personal level, if I cannot uses the EXT2IFS drivers on an Vista system to access my linux drives, I will keep my XP cds and simply use XP and not bother about new games (since the games I use are from 2002, I pretty much already have abandoned new games anyway) or new versions of office.
Google has just removed themselves from the market. Sorry, it's just that simple. First off, they sunk far, far, far more into this money-pit than it could even remotely ever be worth. Second, they have -as has been pointed out- left themselves open for an absolutel insane amount of legal liability -and the pockets of the MPAA run far, far deeper than theirs.
With one unbelievably STUPID purchase, google has done what Microsoft probably could never have done...google has removed google from the game.
It's only a matter of time now.
Nothing to see here, move along....
>As far as representation in the population, U.S. wins that one. As far as gov reps: Jewish, Catholic, Baptist, Unitarian, Scientologist, Quaker, Unspecified...
Think again; you're basically saying that there are Jewish, Christian and 'unspecified'. That's *three*. Sorry, but different sects of the christian faith are still *christian*.
If we had buddhists, muslims and pagans as representatives also, THEN we would be on a par with india; but at this point, we don't.
>I disagree. In short, BSD is for the benefit of developers and GNU is for the benefit of users.
Unless your users want to use GNU tools (QT, Cygwin, etc) in their commercial undertaking, of course. The OpenBSD project has no qualms about anyone making a commercial fork of it (in fact, they even list commerical products based on OpenBSD somewhere on their page); FreeBSD, in turn, is quite proud to have contributed to OS X. To the best of my knowledge neither organisation turned around and demanded (tens of) thousands of dollars (theo's request for help was just that -a request) from people using their projects commercially.
I would completely agree with that. My point (typos aside) is that the GNU license is about as close to being 'free' as Microsoft's Shared Source is; both place undue restrictions upon the user, in stark contrast to genuinely free licenses. This is fine -as long as you're honest about it. But to turn around and say that "our software is free unless you do X, Y or Z with it" is hypocritical and -imho- objectionable in the extreme; particularly when you're going to patronisingly tell me that those reasons are there 'to preserve my freedom'. It's misleading (at best!) wether it's Bush doing it, or wether it's RMS.
>We don't need ya! Don't let the door hit your ass on the way out, kthx.
See, this is a perfect illustration of the different agendas of the BSD and GNU developers. The BSD camp has the attitude of "Do it for free because no one should have to re-invent the wheel". This leads to benefits such as the proliferation of the BSD networking stack which -even though they didn't make a buck off of it- they still benefitted because everyone started from the same -compatible- software base (instead of writing and implementing a zillion half-assed, incompatible solutions). The GNU attitude is "you can't use MY SOFTWARE unless you follow MY AGENDA and play by MY RULES". That would be fine, if these same people were not constantly frothing at the mouth about being "Free As In Freedom" (which, as you can see, means something wholly different coming from them than it does coming from anyone else -say coming from someone who advocates the *total* freedom granted by the BSD license).
In short, BSD is 'free' as in 'free to do whatever you like'; whereas GNU is free as in 'free do it my way or free go to the gulag'.
>I mean Cygwin was free without support last time I checked.
It's been ages since I bothered to look, but I'm pretty sure that cygwin has the same kind of dual-license deal that mysql has. In other words, if you use it commercially, you have to pay.
Someone's gotta pay the bill for all those torrents. Speaking of which, my fedora dl is almost done. Thanks, d00d!
Gah! Just because we're into Free Software doesn't mean we're a bunch of software pirates. That's the script kids; people who use FOSS generally know the value of a buck and choose FOSS because it provides the best value proposistion to match their requirements. A lot of us have gone from closed-source programs -which we paid for- to FOSS for a variet of reasons. We use FOSS because we appreciate having an OS that we genuinely own and appreciate the advantage that Linus' Law ("many eyes make bugs shallow") gives us.
So please reconsider your words the next time you want to paint us all as basement-dwelling pirate theives; there are a wide variety of FOSS advocates here -and while I'm sure there are theives on this board the vast majority prefer legitamately owning our software.
Good day.
>What does Slackware offer the newbie Linux user that something like Ubuntu doesn't?
A series of valuble lessons learning the necessity of Reading The Fine Manual.
Apart from that, the time spent learning, tweaking and using slackware gives a good experiential base to go to probably any other Unix-akin and not be completely lost; or at least -having been stuck in slackware and figured out how to get unstuck- provides a good learning background which will put them in a better stead than your wannabe 'click click click you're installed' distributions.
The difference is that Linux is an open-source OS, windows is a closed source one. So, when someone argues that Intel doesn't support OSS, they can point to the fact that a good deal (most?) of their cards do -in fact- run on Linux.
It's not an argument "against theo", it's an argument against expecting Intel to give a shit about what is (in its' eyes) a fringe OS. From Intel's point of view, there simply isn't enough demand to justify changing what they're already doing -- particularly since they're already providing support for Linux.
,s/I realistically think/I don't realistically think/g
Seriously, look at who we're talking about. "Shaming" Intel into doing anything is about on a par with "shaming" MS into doing anything. Simply because the numbers don't add up. This is how I see this going:
The OpenBSD Userbase: Give us the hardware specifications or we'll take our business elsewhere!
Intel: There's two hundred of you, tops. Fuck off.
This is especially true since --correct me if I'm wrong-- these cards already work in Linux.
Of course, it's also obvious that Theo's "unique" brand of diplomacy does nothing to advance his case.
He has no real leverage to speak of (not when it comes to anything the siez of Intel, at least!); I realistically think he has a chance of pulling this off.
Advertising? Is that anything like adblock? 'cos I've got that....
>Their is deffinately balance that should be maintained here, middle class jobs need to stay abundant or people will become infuriated by their lack of self worth. ...and do what, exactly? Throw a protest? A boycott?
Your post stops right where it should have been beginning; what happens then?
From someone living in post-9/11 america, I'll tell you what happense when people become infuriated:
sweet fuck-all nothing.
You see, there's no means to hold either the government nor the corporations accountable. The government has the legislation, and the guns, and the strategic advantages (YOU cannot listen in on THEIR phone calls); you aren't going to throw them out, and they fucking well know it.
What are you gonna do -- vote Democrat?!?! Good luck with that, pal. Only someone who doesn't remember the clinton years can pretend that the jackasses are on the side of the worker or the consumer.
Here is the rub; there's nothing ---NOTHING that people can do to change the direction that things are going; we're on a fast train to world serfdom and there ain't shit that can be done to stop it. So let the people "become infuriated", who cares? They don't matter, I don't matter, NO ONE matters. There's no stopping the world wide fascist/feudalism that is barrelling down on us.
...and they enforce this how, exactly?
Our congressmen and senators look after the welfare of their constiuancy (sp?), and the courts come to a fair and balanced ruling which takes the best interests of the citizens into account and comes to a verdict which is most just for their citizenry.
It's just that now corporations are the only real citizens-- a situation no different than the late 1700's/early 1800s when only the rich white landowners were considered citizens.
Again, I'll ask --the system works; why are you bitching?
...bugs thrive on corpses! :p
Seriously, though; glad to see they had a good turn out for it. Hopefully this will put to rest some of the "NetBSD is irrelevent" crap that's been floating around recently. Particularly since most of the hype appears to merely be sour grapes from people who were on the wrong side of a power struggle and are now trying to tear down the project (as opposed to anyone with a valid beef).
30 developers isn't that bad, really. Not up to FreeBSD numbers, certainly; but it's a good start. Particularly given that this event wasn't really publicised in any real way (there was nothing here, or on the front page of netbsd.org about it in advance).
Sidenote to the guy having problems with his VAX: problems with one archetetcture (sp?) don't indicate that NetBSD is becoming x86-centric; they just indicate that maybe -just maybe- -what with NetBSD being contributer oriented and all- that the bugs just might be beyond the -VAX team's abilities as well.
No one really cares what the site looks like when they're trying to grab their 0-day moviez.
Ok. Who mentioned candlejack agai
In a fair world, your post would have hit +5. I don't have anything to add -since you stated it all so well. I just wanted to thank you for articulating so well what we all know in our hearts to be true.