I remember when it was exciting to pop by Yahoo.com and see the short list of sites they added the day before. That was in the early '90s, I believe. I can't imagine experiencing the web the same way now. It's just too big...
Since web browsing lost its lustre for me, I've found that the sites that hold my interest most are (gasp!) membership sites that bring together folks with similar tastes. My current favorite is David Lynch's web site. I don't want to sound like an advertisement, but there's frequently updated content, things you won't get anywhere else like a few different "series" David's putting on just for the site, and there's a very, VERY strong member following centered around two chat areas (which David himself as well as some of the folks behind David's movies frequent). Yes, I pay to be there. But in my opinion, it's worth it. I get no advertisements, I get to filter out all but a segment of our planet that has similar interests to mine, and I get to chat with my favorite movie director (and some actors, and writers, and other directors, and... well, you know).
That, in my opinion, is what the "new" web will be about. There's a lot of free stuff out there, and occasionally some of it is good, but more often than not I find myself "turning it off" like I do with my TV nowadays. More now than ever, on the web you get what you pay for. If I have to pay for quality content, I'm going to.
So much for the "Please Support Loki" campaign
on
Loki Aftermath Looks Bad
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
At the risk of being flamed, I have to say this:
What do you think of darling Loki now??
Linux gamers flocked to these forums pleading with people -- even non-gamers -- to buy something from Loki so they could stay afloat. Hopefully this will show that blind loyalty to a platform (Linux, Windows, who cares? They're all OSes, not religions) is sometimes misguided. If I would have temporarily dropped my who-cares-about-games-on-Linux stance and bought something from Loki, I'm guessing I would have only been supporting the allegedly crooked Draeker clan instead of supporting the company.
Sorry, but supporting a friggin' IP lawyer like Draeker isn't my idea of money well spent. The best we can hope for at this point is that the Draekers carry all of the guilt (if it's proven they're guilty) without dragging down Linux. I would think that's possible. The guy sounds like the s**t that s**t scrapes off its shoes. Folks who run companies and end up screwing the folks that made their business work deserve whatever hell that's dished out for them.
There's such a thing as quitting while you're on top. I guess ESR hasn't realized this yet.
He was a good spokesperson (if not self appointed; I don't recall voting for him), but nowadays he's just spouting off whatever stream of thought he has re: Linux and open source software.
Newsflash, ESR, in case you haven't read the other 100 or so posts of this ilk: when PCs get cheaper, so will Windows. MS will do whatever it takes to get Windows on PCs, even if it needs to make Windows into a loss leader. You don't become a multi-billion dollar corporation with $0 (yes, **$0**) of debt by not adapting to markets. If any OS is not adapting quick enough, it's Linux, not Windows. (Yes, I'm a Linux/*BSD advocate, but I'm realistic, unlike Mr. Raymond.)
Someone put ESR to bed... Quickly... Maybe he can tweak his geek sex howto or one of his other myriad unwarranted-but-written-nonetheless documents. Regardless, I no longer consider his rantings to be benefitial to open source development or Linux. Just my personal opinion.
I think they should convince David Lynch to make Mulholland Drive back into a series and air that. At least there'd be something worth a damn on TV. As it stands, even the worth a damn stuff isn't much worth a damn.
I was running 4.3 until last night, when for some odd reason I decided to upgrade to 4.4. I ran cvsup manually to make sure I had the latest sources, ran "make world", then this morning I compiled a new kernel and rebooted.
Whaddaya know, it booted up as "4.5-STABLE" instead of "4.4-STABLE". Talk about pleasant surprises... I guess if I read my email before rebooting I would have known.
Could we have some recent articles? Rehashing articles that have appeared elsewhere is not my idea of producing a quality online zine. I could do the same thing by putting links on any ol' web page. Doing so and calling it a "magazine" is questionable at best. (I'm sure some of the content is new, like RMS' opening editorial. Other articles in the mag seem old, though.)
...Loki is a business, and if they don't have a viable business model, it's their problem. When you start a business you either make it successful or you don't. It's nobody elses problem to make things work, and it's especially nobody elses problem to infuse cash into a business that has proven time and time again that it's not viable.
I'm not saying Loki was a bad company. I'm saying that the business they were in was not robust enough to sustain Loki. Even the best of the best can only sell ice cubes to eskimos for so long. The Linux gaming market just isn't there, folks. Make your peace and move on.
I wish the folks at Loki (and the former employees) all the luck in the world, and maybe some day Linux will have a viable game market that will bring them all back together again. For now, though, it's not there. Pooling money together to keep Loki alive for the few people who bothered to buy their games is just plain silly. Ditto for asking RH/IBM/AOL to bail them out.
Loki wasn't in the business of charity; nobody should be asked for charity to keep Loki in business.
I have been a fan of The X-Files pretty much since its inception. It's one of the only TV shows I actually put aside time to watch (the others being the local news that's on while I get ready for work, and CBS Sunday Morning. Everything else is pretty much tripe IMHO).
I have to confess that I was not sorry to see Mulder go. Once the whole Samantha thing was resolved (well done, I might add), he bored me. As much as I like Scully, I think she probably should have left along with Mulder. The two are too closely intertwined in the series to survive without the other. Especially with the revelation a few shows ago that Scully and Mulder had a thing going (I thought they just did a turkey baster number and moved on from there). Scully and Mulder in love? Good grief... Remember when Mork married Mindy, or when David got together with Maddy (that was on Moonlighting, for those who don't remember)? Talk about a death knell for a TV show. Now we have the whole Scully & Mulder fling to bore us into changing the channel.
This has me worried about a sequel to the X-Files movie. If both Mulder and Scully are in it, I can guarantee it's going to be a love story. I don't mind love stories, but I don't think they fit with the whole X-Files thing. If it's a love story, I'm going to skip it fer sher.
All that said, I am very sorry that Reyes and Doggett won't be able to develop more. I sincerely think that those two characters could have easily taken over for Mulder and Scully. I find them immensely more likeable at this point anyway. They have all the sexual tension that Mulder and Scully had, and they still offer that "I believe" vs. "I'm skeptical" professional tension that M & S had. Plus these two actually have lives. This makes them much more interesting.
Anyway, I'll shut up now. RIP X-Files... You gave me something to watch after Twin Peaks was cancelled...
(I should have included this in my last message...)
Also, unless I'm mistaken, the inclusion of the MS video format was in ADDITION to the support for DVDs. Like my DVD player at home which plays audio CDs, DVDs, and VCDs. The presence of one does not affect the other.
I never said XML and SOAP were developed by Microsoft.
If you look at the proposals for each, though, you'll see that Microsoft is a primary contributor and has been from the very beginning. One could say the specs for XML and SOAP started at Microsoft.
(I'll confess to getting the WAV thing wrong. I'm *not* wrong about this, though. Check xml.org.)
Out of all the folks I know with computers at home (that includes pretty much everyone I know except for some of my older relatives), probably 10% focus on gaming. The rest are using their computers in their home offices, or for Internet access, or for hobby/craft stuff, or even dinking around with programming (retirees mostly).
"Wager" all you want; my observation is you'd lose your bet. Most of the folks I know who have computers have digital sound cards and video adapters with >=32MB RAM, and all but about 10% of them do anything that requires even minimal video and/or sound. I view the inclusion of such hardware a tax much like many of you consider the inclusion of MS Windows a tax. Good luck downgrading, too. PC builders don't like that.
I guess you and I walk in different circles. C'est la vie. (Don't call me an elitist, though. Ever. I can oppose your opinion without being an elitist.)
Okay, since when has it been evil to say that something Microsoft is doing may not be a bad thing? At the time I typed this, the top level message was modded down to "Flaimbait".
Huh?!?
Face it, folks, there is nothing wrong with DVD players supporting Microsoft media formats. This does not take away from your ability to view DVDs; if anything, it opens up the device to play more diverse formats which as we all know is a GOOD thing.
But hey, if you don't want to be touched by MS in any way, stop playing WAV files, don't touch XML or SOAP, don't incorporate any standards into the whiz-bang window manager you're writing, don't code any more web content using any modern HTML standards, blah blah blah.
Sorry, but some of you REALLY need to learn how to pick your battles (like I do, I guess, considering that this message will probably be modded down as well and in the end won't make anyone see any more light than they're already seeing).
The whole idea of keeping things like the Linux kernel open is to allow things like fragmentation to happen. If you don't want to use the "-abc" kernels, they're easy to identify, so you shouldn't have any problem avoiding them.
Now, if someone made their own fork and named the files exactly the same as the "real" Linux kernel (i.e. not Alan Cox's, or any other non-Linus blessed kernel), then there would be problems. I'm not worried about this at all. In fact, I'm glad to see others who are either impatient with the slowness of Linus' team or are fed up with the petty bickering over crap like VMs pick up the ball and do things their way. And as always, if these one-off kernels have cool stuff, Linus and his merry men are free to harvest what they like and incorporate the stuff into their source tree.
One person's fragmentation is another person's diversification. This kind of fragmentation gave us multiple Linux distributions, embedded Linux innovations, and a host of other things that lots of folks are thankful to have.
Sure, the free sound drivers could be better (remember, though, that OSS from 4-Front is available for FreeBSD, so this isn't a monumental issue), 3D support isn't fantastic, and quality SMP support isn't going to hit FreeBSD until probably version 5.0.
Regardless, your comment about FreeBSD being an inferior desktop OS is simply, undeniably, completely wrong. The same open source and free software available for Linux (with VERY few exceptions) is available for FreeBSD. If you're a gamer then 3D and sound may be an issue for you, but call a spade a spade, "desktop box" != "game box". When I think of desktop machines, I think of productivity, machines that help you get lots of important stuff done easily and quickly. When I think of game machines I think of Playstation 2s. Sorry, but I would rather spend $300 on a PS2 than dedicate my $2,000 PC to gaming (the PS2 would probably run better anyway).
Yes, I am another Linux --> FreeBSD convert. My machine does run better with FreeBSD, Mozilla actually works efficiently even with debugging stuff compiled in, and I get LOTS less zombie processes and frozen apps, etc. now that I've switched over. And yes, my Linux machine at work runs the exact same software and window manager as my machine at home (except for Mozilla, of course).
Both OSes have their plusses and minuses. Linux is more ubiquitous, but I still think FreeBSD has eeked ahead in some areas. Not all -- Linux will be in the lead for quite some time, I'm sure -- but some.
Rather than poo poo FreeBSD based on game stuff, why not try it as an actual desktop OS?
Just curious here... A long time ago, the Abiword project refused to become the official (i.e. to the exclusion of "all others") word processor for GNOME. To this day, you can get GNOME and non-GNOME versions of Abiword.
Yes, MS was found guilty of abusing its monopoly. And yes, giving away its own software is not what I would consider punishment. But I'll point out what I pointed out to someone else in this thread that I started: the DOJ case is where actual company-level punishment happens, not class action lawsuits. These kinds of lawsuits are meant solely for financial restitution, not breaking up the company, or forcing MS source code to be opened up, or any other organizational/procedural punishment. This settlement is meant to make MS spend $$ in response to their monopolistic actions, plain and simple. Whether it's $1 billion cash or $1 billion in software, it's still $1 billion in value that MS must cough up.
People here are bitching about it going to schools in the form of software, hardware, and training. I'm saying this should not be an issue. MS is proposing to dish out their $1 billion this way (as far as I know, it's still just a proposal). Knowing what I know about lack of computers in schools (and the antiquated state of computers in those schools that do have them), I know that there is actually some benefit to this. It's amazing how much people here are against this, and as far as I can tell it's just because MS is part of it. If Borland decided to donate tons of copies of C++ Builder (a proprietary system, I might add, that doesn't help all that much in teaching people non-Windows programming), something tells me people here would cheer even if they didn't care for Borland's products. It's strange.
Wrong case... The DOJ case is meant for things like what you're discussing. That's where the punishment you're advocating should have happened. Class action lawsuits don't break up companies, expose OEM contracts, or any of the other stuff you're proposing. Class action lawsuits involve financial restitution. End of story.
So, this flame is officially being re-directed at the DOJ. You're not correct in pointing it here.
"What good is giving a computer to a kid if he can't read, or do math?" First off, profiling is not a very nice thing to do. Kindly cut it out. Second, have you ever considered that a computer can *help* kids learn to read and write? Did you know that you can do more with computers than compile source code and read Slashdot?
As for using the money to get other things... That would be find and dandy, but I know enough people who are older who got all of the things you're mentioning (books, nutritious lunches, decent teachers, etc.) but freak out when they sit in front of computers because they don't understand them. Ask the average mom over 40 who's getting back into a career how scary things are nowadays with the emphasis on computers (and computer oriented knowledge that they don't seem to possess), and I'm sure you'll get an earful. Besides, I've been to school. Nutrition, books, decent teachers, etc. don't guarantee jack as far as education goes. Give students something they want to learn and you'll get results. Kids like computers. Kids tend to not like books, at least not as much.
You seem to be implying that the best way to learn how to use computers is to offer open APIs w/ an open code base, reams of documentation at every level, and avid support world-wide. You also seem to think that compled UIs with all available options right there in front of new users is a good thing. Here's another enumerated list for you:
1) "Using" a computer is not the same as developing on a computer. Here lies the fallacy that is dragging down Linux and other open-source OSes: end users don't care about APIs, cool developer tools, and open source code. They care about *using* computers. When I said that developers needed to put end-users in front of developer coolness, this is the *exact* thing that I was talking about. If you're an open source developer, you need to stop thinking like a developer and start thinking like an end user. Computers are tools, and when they're made accessible to the masses they can unleash all kinds of wonderful stuff; make them cryptic w/ GUIs that encapsulate 100% of the functionality, refer folks to source code and APIs to learn how to make things happen, and send them to newsgroups and mail lists where they'll be flamed for not reading the comment the developer put in header file X before asking questions, and you'll lose a potentially valuable user base. Let's face it: free/open-source developers more often than not write apps for other free/open-source developers. Your comments illustrate this nicely.
2) There's more to computer-oriented careers than software development. More people use computers than develop for them. Again, you're illustrating how developer-centric this realm is. I'm saying you need to step out of this before making a real difference for these OSes.
3) "Dumbed-down" user interfaces are necessary for the average human. You and I may be able to configure DNS using a command line and vi, or even a slightly dumbed down UI like webmin, but the average IT guy won't. Yes, intelligently weeding out the complex stuff and leaving that to command line folks or another GUI under an "Advanced" button makes sense. I would welcome more dumbed down GUIs on Linux/BSD/whatever. It would make my life easier (less questions to repeatedly answer).
4) You completely missed my point about web services and browsers. If an IT group is faced with a decision to either swap out an OS so that some different software can be run or just keep an OS around (like Windows) that will work just fine with a web services application, there is absolutely, positively NO reason to go through the IT headache of changing OSes on hundreds of computers company-wide. What you're saying is that if the browser on Windows and the browser on Linux works fine, then there's no reason not to switch to Linux. Huh?... Have you ever deployed anything across an entire company before? Leave-it-alone is the best policy when it comes to situations like this.
5) I don't know exactly where you're seeing these "reams of documentation", but after using Linux for 10 years I still am amazed at how poorly documented it is. The mass-market books available in bookstores are good for pressing flowers, but most of them aren't worth much more. And if you're talking about the ancient man page collections and HOWTOs/FAQs, they're in sad shape as well. And even when these things are "complete", they're so cryptic that without prior experience you'll have a lovely time trying to figure out what the hell you're supposed to do to get effect X out of utility Y. In other words, the documentation sucks.
Most of the people posting against the settlement know not what they say.
Long version:
Most of you seem to have this knee jerk reaction to anything with M-I-C-R-O-S-O-F-T printed anywhere within. I think MS has a monopoly. Wow, what a revelation. Whooda thunk MS would ever be accused of such a thing?
Here's some info that I'd like some of you to consider before you flame me mercilessly and kill my karma:
1) MS didn't sprinkle pixie dust on PC users and magically become a monopoly. You and I MADE them a monopoly. And don't give me bunk about "the OS that people saw growing up was Windows, so that was the only OS in the universe". Whatever. When I was in school, we had teletype terminals and IBM DOS machines. There was no MS monopoly back then. I'm in my mid 30's so it's not like I'm talking about the dark ages of computing.
2) If you put Windows machines in schools, Apple will piss and moan about it. If you put Apple machines in schools, MS and everyone else will piss and moan about it. If you put Linux in schools, BSD folks will piss and moan about it. Face it, there is no OS on the planet that can go into schools that will get a 100% endorsement even within the free/open-source software world. Period.
3) Let's see what's more benefitial: average PC users receive a check for the $20 determined to be the "damage" we sustained as a result of MS's monopolistic actions, or kids in poor neighborhoods/schools get access to training, hardware, and computer related education that they would not be given access to otherwise. Hmmm... Let's see... (If you have to honestly think about it, you need to work on being more human and less greedy.)
4) I don't give half of a rat's ass if students learn to do word processing on Word instead of Abiword. I started off with DOS, then I moved to Windows, then I moved to Linux, and now I'm working with BSD and UNIX. I started off the same way these kids will start off, and despite all of that I'm not a Windows user. Gee, could it be possible that I had -- *GASP* -- freedom of choice? Reading comments posted here, you'd think that if MS puts Windows in classrooms that the people in those classes will nevereverEVER touch anything other than Windows. Get real, folks.
5) Windows is -- on the whole -- easier to use than Linux, *BSD, or UNIX. I say that as someone using these latter OSes daily and the former OS almost never. I don't let my preferences cloud the issue or induce prejudice against Windows, though. I don't care if you're more familiar with the latter OSes. Windows is easier to deal with for newbies than any of them. And until developers start putting the end-user experience in front of developer coolness (take a hint, free/open-source developers), this will continue to be a true statement.
5) Windows experience is more marketable right now than Linux/BSD/UNIX experience, and will continue to be that way for quite some time as far as I can tell. Unless companies completely ditch Windows and start over with a new OS (which will not happen, no matter how many op-ed pieces you read saying the opposite), it's going to be a long, long, LONG time before Linux/BSD/UNIX experience makes you more marketable on a global scale than Windows experience. And with the web services wave just about ready to rise, the OS people use will become less important than the browser it's running, so people will have less incentive to go through the IS/deployment/training nightmare associated with a company-wide OS switch.
Flame away...
Easy: BASIC STAMPS ($150+ for starter kits)
on
Geek Gift Ideas 2001
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
What could be more cool than a simple microcontroller that uses a variation of BASIC as a programming language? Get a starter kit (one with a "Board of Education" if at all possible to avoid all the soldering/de-soldering), then watch hours fly by as you make goofy contraptions, robots, electric-eye-security systems, etc. You don't need to be a professional microcontroller programmer to use these things, either.
The one big issue is that the programming environment is set up to run under DOS/Windows. I'm guessing Wine may be able to run it, but I've never tried. If you can get over your distaste for DOS/Windows (let's face it: most of us have at least one dual boot machine anyway), I can not recommend BASIC Stamps highly enough. They're true geek toys without being childish.
It amazes me that loners and folks with few (if any) people skills insist on getting into the computer science biz, thinking that it'll guarantee that they'll not have to deal with people, and if they do, the people they'll be dealing with will be other techies. Bah! What a load... Of all the industries (other than teaching the mentally disabled) that require extensive patience and the ability to tolerate the endless, repetitive questions of people not in the know, the computer science industry takes the prize. If you can't handle it, for God's sake DON'T GET INTO IT. Turn around, find a forest ranger job, and bring a laptop to hack on in your spare time if you still want to program.
If you want to get into the tech industry, read my words and burn them into your brain: YOU WILL ENCOUNTER IGNORANT PEOPLE, AND YOU WILL NEED TO BE PATIENT BECAUSE MANY OF THEM WILL *NEVER* LEARN. Deal with it. This is not an option, folks! The most ignorant, impossible to teach people use computers, and you -- being a techie -- will have a long string of them stuck to you like toilet paper on the bottom of your shoe. They won't learn no matter how many times you explain things to them, mostly because they expect you to be around forever to do their remembering for them. Cut them off if you wish, but bemoaning the fact that they exist only shows how clueless you are about the reality of being a techie in a technical industry.
There are always those folks who actually are capable of learning, but they don't know where to start looking. Patiently pointing them to docs helps. Not everyone knows that if they download a tarball, use an arcane tar command to extract it, use "cd" to change to a directory, then use "less" to view a file called "README" that their questions will be answered. If you've never seen a command line before, how would you want something like this explained to you? "Idiot, read the fscking README and then erase my software and never soil my web site with your plebian presence again!" Yeah, that's effective... And to think that if half of the effort of flaming the person went into patiently saying how to obtain docs, both you and the person trying to learn would be much better off.
... or is this perhaps your idea of "...how to fix it"?
As for "the majority of users are horridly ungreatful [sic]", not only are you 180 degrees off (most are extremely grateful for any tid bit of help you can throw their way), but I'll go so far as to say most developers -- the ones lacking people skills who got into the tech industry anyway -- are the problem. When someone asks for help, many times (s)he doesn't even know where to start looking for info. And on sites like SourceForge (to give an example), the UI is so un-intuitive that even clicking on a documentation link may get you no closer to documentation than reading source code. Inconsistency, docs that are hard to find (if any exist at all, and aren't cryptic as hell), illusions of grandeur as if the software you're porting/writing/supporting makes you a God, etc... The problem lies mostly with arrogant techies IMHO.
COMPSCI 101, huh? I guess that means you have school smarts. Street smarts beats school smarts in a situation like this, "chap". (And yes, I'm a professional working in the tech industry as a software engineer. I know what I say from experience, not from wild guesses...)
I've seen dings in boxes from UPS and FedEx before, but WOW, I'm surprised UPS was able to deliver your stuff even in the state it's in. Even the USPS puts damaged stuff in envelopes or other packaging material before delivery. The negligence on UPS' behalf extends beyond damaging your goods. That just plain sucks.
I don't believe that resigning was an answer to anything. Afte reading his message on geocrawler, it seems that he's sick of a lot more than just Fink. I can't say I blame him, although reading some of his "evidence" links didn't exactly paint him in the most favorable light (even when I'm sick to death of people asking me dumb questions or making me justify every statement I make in a mail list, I try not to be as hostile as Chris was. Good grief, that guy has a MAJOR attitude problem).
I think someone like him really should stay out of the "people" business and stick to working behind the scenes for someone else. That's an honest statement, and is not meant to be a flame. He just doesn't have what it takes to deal with the inevitable cluseless newbie. Some "have it", but some (like him) will never work out in that arena.
The problem with most CS folks that I know is that they dive in and wallow in the stuff to the exclusion of everything else. Nobody can do one thing endlessly without getting fried, even if they think they can (try to convince a guy who's knee deep in coding the Master Widget that he needs to walk away from his computer and play lawn darts or do some other non-CS activity. It's like trying to take a bowl of food away from a dog while he's eating).
Lots of folks here are recommending that you step away from CS for a week or two and do something else. I don't agree. Keep doing what you're doing, just don't do it exclusively. Spend time with your CS stuff, then at a certain point in the day turn off the monitor, go get a beer, watch a movie, go out with your significant other, whatever. The next day, get back to it, but be sure to spend some time during your day not even thinking about CS.
If more geeks would do this, we'd probably have less religious wars (KDE/GNOME, GPL/BSD, etc.). Perspective is a powerful thing, and unfortunately CS folks forget that there's more to the day-to-day grind than sitting in front of a computer. When your world shrinks that small, it's no wonder CS folks get so high-strung.
If you're well rounded (no fat jokes, thank you) you'll have a much better chance of not reaching the point of burn out. Become single-minded, and burn-out is inevitable.
Slashdot Mirror
Since web browsing lost its lustre for me, I've found that the sites that hold my interest most are (gasp!) membership sites that bring together folks with similar tastes. My current favorite is David Lynch's web site. I don't want to sound like an advertisement, but there's frequently updated content, things you won't get anywhere else like a few different "series" David's putting on just for the site, and there's a very, VERY strong member following centered around two chat areas (which David himself as well as some of the folks behind David's movies frequent). Yes, I pay to be there. But in my opinion, it's worth it. I get no advertisements, I get to filter out all but a segment of our planet that has similar interests to mine, and I get to chat with my favorite movie director (and some actors, and writers, and other directors, and... well, you know).
That, in my opinion, is what the "new" web will be about. There's a lot of free stuff out there, and occasionally some of it is good, but more often than not I find myself "turning it off" like I do with my TV nowadays. More now than ever, on the web you get what you pay for. If I have to pay for quality content, I'm going to.
At the risk of being flamed, I have to say this:
What do you think of darling Loki now??
Linux gamers flocked to these forums pleading with people -- even non-gamers -- to buy something from Loki so they could stay afloat. Hopefully this will show that blind loyalty to a platform (Linux, Windows, who cares? They're all OSes, not religions) is sometimes misguided. If I would have temporarily dropped my who-cares-about-games-on-Linux stance and bought something from Loki, I'm guessing I would have only been supporting the allegedly crooked Draeker clan instead of supporting the company.
Sorry, but supporting a friggin' IP lawyer like Draeker isn't my idea of money well spent. The best we can hope for at this point is that the Draekers carry all of the guilt (if it's proven they're guilty) without dragging down Linux. I would think that's possible. The guy sounds like the s**t that s**t scrapes off its shoes. Folks who run companies and end up screwing the folks that made their business work deserve whatever hell that's dished out for them.
There's such a thing as quitting while you're on top. I guess ESR hasn't realized this yet.
He was a good spokesperson (if not self appointed; I don't recall voting for him), but nowadays he's just spouting off whatever stream of thought he has re: Linux and open source software.
Newsflash, ESR, in case you haven't read the other 100 or so posts of this ilk: when PCs get cheaper, so will Windows. MS will do whatever it takes to get Windows on PCs, even if it needs to make Windows into a loss leader. You don't become a multi-billion dollar corporation with $0 (yes, **$0**) of debt by not adapting to markets. If any OS is not adapting quick enough, it's Linux, not Windows. (Yes, I'm a Linux/*BSD advocate, but I'm realistic, unlike Mr. Raymond.)
Someone put ESR to bed... Quickly... Maybe he can tweak his geek sex howto or one of his other myriad unwarranted-but-written-nonetheless documents. Regardless, I no longer consider his rantings to be benefitial to open source development or Linux. Just my personal opinion.
Flame away.
E.
I think they should convince David Lynch to make Mulholland Drive back into a series and air that. At least there'd be something worth a damn on TV. As it stands, even the worth a damn stuff isn't much worth a damn.
I was running 4.3 until last night, when for some odd reason I decided to upgrade to 4.4. I ran cvsup manually to make sure I had the latest sources, ran "make world", then this morning I compiled a new kernel and rebooted.
Whaddaya know, it booted up as "4.5-STABLE" instead of "4.4-STABLE". Talk about pleasant surprises... I guess if I read my email before rebooting I would have known.
Could we have some recent articles? Rehashing articles that have appeared elsewhere is not my idea of producing a quality online zine. I could do the same thing by putting links on any ol' web page. Doing so and calling it a "magazine" is questionable at best. (I'm sure some of the content is new, like RMS' opening editorial. Other articles in the mag seem old, though.)
All things considered, I'm not impressed.
...Loki is a business, and if they don't have a viable business model, it's their problem. When you start a business you either make it successful or you don't. It's nobody elses problem to make things work, and it's especially nobody elses problem to infuse cash into a business that has proven time and time again that it's not viable.
I'm not saying Loki was a bad company. I'm saying that the business they were in was not robust enough to sustain Loki. Even the best of the best can only sell ice cubes to eskimos for so long. The Linux gaming market just isn't there, folks. Make your peace and move on.
I wish the folks at Loki (and the former employees) all the luck in the world, and maybe some day Linux will have a viable game market that will bring them all back together again. For now, though, it's not there. Pooling money together to keep Loki alive for the few people who bothered to buy their games is just plain silly. Ditto for asking RH/IBM/AOL to bail them out.
Loki wasn't in the business of charity; nobody should be asked for charity to keep Loki in business.
I have been a fan of The X-Files pretty much since its inception. It's one of the only TV shows I actually put aside time to watch (the others being the local news that's on while I get ready for work, and CBS Sunday Morning. Everything else is pretty much tripe IMHO).
I have to confess that I was not sorry to see Mulder go. Once the whole Samantha thing was resolved (well done, I might add), he bored me. As much as I like Scully, I think she probably should have left along with Mulder. The two are too closely intertwined in the series to survive without the other. Especially with the revelation a few shows ago that Scully and Mulder had a thing going (I thought they just did a turkey baster number and moved on from there). Scully and Mulder in love? Good grief... Remember when Mork married Mindy, or when David got together with Maddy (that was on Moonlighting, for those who don't remember)? Talk about a death knell for a TV show. Now we have the whole Scully & Mulder fling to bore us into changing the channel.
This has me worried about a sequel to the X-Files movie. If both Mulder and Scully are in it, I can guarantee it's going to be a love story. I don't mind love stories, but I don't think they fit with the whole X-Files thing. If it's a love story, I'm going to skip it fer sher.
All that said, I am very sorry that Reyes and Doggett won't be able to develop more. I sincerely think that those two characters could have easily taken over for Mulder and Scully. I find them immensely more likeable at this point anyway. They have all the sexual tension that Mulder and Scully had, and they still offer that "I believe" vs. "I'm skeptical" professional tension that M & S had. Plus these two actually have lives. This makes them much more interesting.
Anyway, I'll shut up now. RIP X-Files... You gave me something to watch after Twin Peaks was cancelled...
E.
(I should have included this in my last message...)
Also, unless I'm mistaken, the inclusion of the MS video format was in ADDITION to the support for DVDs. Like my DVD player at home which plays audio CDs, DVDs, and VCDs. The presence of one does not affect the other.
I never said XML and SOAP were developed by Microsoft.
If you look at the proposals for each, though, you'll see that Microsoft is a primary contributor and has been from the very beginning. One could say the specs for XML and SOAP started at Microsoft.
(I'll confess to getting the WAV thing wrong. I'm *not* wrong about this, though. Check xml.org.)
Out of all the folks I know with computers at home (that includes pretty much everyone I know except for some of my older relatives), probably 10% focus on gaming. The rest are using their computers in their home offices, or for Internet access, or for hobby/craft stuff, or even dinking around with programming (retirees mostly).
"Wager" all you want; my observation is you'd lose your bet. Most of the folks I know who have computers have digital sound cards and video adapters with >=32MB RAM, and all but about 10% of them do anything that requires even minimal video and/or sound. I view the inclusion of such hardware a tax much like many of you consider the inclusion of MS Windows a tax. Good luck downgrading, too. PC builders don't like that.
I guess you and I walk in different circles. C'est la vie. (Don't call me an elitist, though. Ever. I can oppose your opinion without being an elitist.)
Okay, since when has it been evil to say that something Microsoft is doing may not be a bad thing? At the time I typed this, the top level message was modded down to "Flaimbait".
Huh?!?
Face it, folks, there is nothing wrong with DVD players supporting Microsoft media formats. This does not take away from your ability to view DVDs; if anything, it opens up the device to play more diverse formats which as we all know is a GOOD thing.
But hey, if you don't want to be touched by MS in any way, stop playing WAV files, don't touch XML or SOAP, don't incorporate any standards into the whiz-bang window manager you're writing, don't code any more web content using any modern HTML standards, blah blah blah.
Sorry, but some of you REALLY need to learn how to pick your battles (like I do, I guess, considering that this message will probably be modded down as well and in the end won't make anyone see any more light than they're already seeing).
E. (A non-Windows user...)
The whole idea of keeping things like the Linux kernel open is to allow things like fragmentation to happen. If you don't want to use the "-abc" kernels, they're easy to identify, so you shouldn't have any problem avoiding them.
Now, if someone made their own fork and named the files exactly the same as the "real" Linux kernel (i.e. not Alan Cox's, or any other non-Linus blessed kernel), then there would be problems. I'm not worried about this at all. In fact, I'm glad to see others who are either impatient with the slowness of Linus' team or are fed up with the petty bickering over crap like VMs pick up the ball and do things their way. And as always, if these one-off kernels have cool stuff, Linus and his merry men are free to harvest what they like and incorporate the stuff into their source tree.
One person's fragmentation is another person's diversification. This kind of fragmentation gave us multiple Linux distributions, embedded Linux innovations, and a host of other things that lots of folks are thankful to have.
Sure, the free sound drivers could be better (remember, though, that OSS from 4-Front is available for FreeBSD, so this isn't a monumental issue), 3D support isn't fantastic, and quality SMP support isn't going to hit FreeBSD until probably version 5.0.
Regardless, your comment about FreeBSD being an inferior desktop OS is simply, undeniably, completely wrong. The same open source and free software available for Linux (with VERY few exceptions) is available for FreeBSD. If you're a gamer then 3D and sound may be an issue for you, but call a spade a spade, "desktop box" != "game box". When I think of desktop machines, I think of productivity, machines that help you get lots of important stuff done easily and quickly. When I think of game machines I think of Playstation 2s. Sorry, but I would rather spend $300 on a PS2 than dedicate my $2,000 PC to gaming (the PS2 would probably run better anyway).
Yes, I am another Linux --> FreeBSD convert. My machine does run better with FreeBSD, Mozilla actually works efficiently even with debugging stuff compiled in, and I get LOTS less zombie processes and frozen apps, etc. now that I've switched over. And yes, my Linux machine at work runs the exact same software and window manager as my machine at home (except for Mozilla, of course).
Both OSes have their plusses and minuses. Linux is more ubiquitous, but I still think FreeBSD has eeked ahead in some areas. Not all -- Linux will be in the lead for quite some time, I'm sure -- but some.
Rather than poo poo FreeBSD based on game stuff, why not try it as an actual desktop OS?
Just curious here... A long time ago, the Abiword project refused to become the official (i.e. to the exclusion of "all others") word processor for GNOME. To this day, you can get GNOME and non-GNOME versions of Abiword.
Why is this assigned to the GNOME topic?
Yes, MS was found guilty of abusing its monopoly. And yes, giving away its own software is not what I would consider punishment. But I'll point out what I pointed out to someone else in this thread that I started: the DOJ case is where actual company-level punishment happens, not class action lawsuits. These kinds of lawsuits are meant solely for financial restitution, not breaking up the company, or forcing MS source code to be opened up, or any other organizational/procedural punishment. This settlement is meant to make MS spend $$ in response to their monopolistic actions, plain and simple. Whether it's $1 billion cash or $1 billion in software, it's still $1 billion in value that MS must cough up.
People here are bitching about it going to schools in the form of software, hardware, and training. I'm saying this should not be an issue. MS is proposing to dish out their $1 billion this way (as far as I know, it's still just a proposal). Knowing what I know about lack of computers in schools (and the antiquated state of computers in those schools that do have them), I know that there is actually some benefit to this. It's amazing how much people here are against this, and as far as I can tell it's just because MS is part of it. If Borland decided to donate tons of copies of C++ Builder (a proprietary system, I might add, that doesn't help all that much in teaching people non-Windows programming), something tells me people here would cheer even if they didn't care for Borland's products. It's strange.
Wrong case... The DOJ case is meant for things like what you're discussing. That's where the punishment you're advocating should have happened. Class action lawsuits don't break up companies, expose OEM contracts, or any of the other stuff you're proposing. Class action lawsuits involve financial restitution. End of story.
So, this flame is officially being re-directed at the DOJ. You're not correct in pointing it here.
"What good is giving a computer to a kid if he can't read, or do math?" First off, profiling is not a very nice thing to do. Kindly cut it out. Second, have you ever considered that a computer can *help* kids learn to read and write? Did you know that you can do more with computers than compile source code and read Slashdot?
As for using the money to get other things... That would be find and dandy, but I know enough people who are older who got all of the things you're mentioning (books, nutritious lunches, decent teachers, etc.) but freak out when they sit in front of computers because they don't understand them. Ask the average mom over 40 who's getting back into a career how scary things are nowadays with the emphasis on computers (and computer oriented knowledge that they don't seem to possess), and I'm sure you'll get an earful. Besides, I've been to school. Nutrition, books, decent teachers, etc. don't guarantee jack as far as education goes. Give students something they want to learn and you'll get results. Kids like computers. Kids tend to not like books, at least not as much.
You seem to be implying that the best way to learn how to use computers is to offer open APIs w/ an open code base, reams of documentation at every level, and avid support world-wide. You also seem to think that compled UIs with all available options right there in front of new users is a good thing. Here's another enumerated list for you:
1) "Using" a computer is not the same as developing on a computer. Here lies the fallacy that is dragging down Linux and other open-source OSes: end users don't care about APIs, cool developer tools, and open source code. They care about *using* computers. When I said that developers needed to put end-users in front of developer coolness, this is the *exact* thing that I was talking about. If you're an open source developer, you need to stop thinking like a developer and start thinking like an end user. Computers are tools, and when they're made accessible to the masses they can unleash all kinds of wonderful stuff; make them cryptic w/ GUIs that encapsulate 100% of the functionality, refer folks to source code and APIs to learn how to make things happen, and send them to newsgroups and mail lists where they'll be flamed for not reading the comment the developer put in header file X before asking questions, and you'll lose a potentially valuable user base. Let's face it: free/open-source developers more often than not write apps for other free/open-source developers. Your comments illustrate this nicely.
2) There's more to computer-oriented careers than software development. More people use computers than develop for them. Again, you're illustrating how developer-centric this realm is. I'm saying you need to step out of this before making a real difference for these OSes.
3) "Dumbed-down" user interfaces are necessary for the average human. You and I may be able to configure DNS using a command line and vi, or even a slightly dumbed down UI like webmin, but the average IT guy won't. Yes, intelligently weeding out the complex stuff and leaving that to command line folks or another GUI under an "Advanced" button makes sense. I would welcome more dumbed down GUIs on Linux/BSD/whatever. It would make my life easier (less questions to repeatedly answer).
4) You completely missed my point about web services and browsers. If an IT group is faced with a decision to either swap out an OS so that some different software can be run or just keep an OS around (like Windows) that will work just fine with a web services application, there is absolutely, positively NO reason to go through the IT headache of changing OSes on hundreds of computers company-wide. What you're saying is that if the browser on Windows and the browser on Linux works fine, then there's no reason not to switch to Linux. Huh?... Have you ever deployed anything across an entire company before? Leave-it-alone is the best policy when it comes to situations like this.
5) I don't know exactly where you're seeing these "reams of documentation", but after using Linux for 10 years I still am amazed at how poorly documented it is. The mass-market books available in bookstores are good for pressing flowers, but most of them aren't worth much more. And if you're talking about the ancient man page collections and HOWTOs/FAQs, they're in sad shape as well. And even when these things are "complete", they're so cryptic that without prior experience you'll have a lovely time trying to figure out what the hell you're supposed to do to get effect X out of utility Y. In other words, the documentation sucks.
Try again.
Short version:
Most of the people posting against the settlement know not what they say.
Long version:
Most of you seem to have this knee jerk reaction to anything with M-I-C-R-O-S-O-F-T printed anywhere within. I think MS has a monopoly. Wow, what a revelation. Whooda thunk MS would ever be accused of such a thing?
Here's some info that I'd like some of you to consider before you flame me mercilessly and kill my karma:
1) MS didn't sprinkle pixie dust on PC users and magically become a monopoly. You and I MADE them a monopoly. And don't give me bunk about "the OS that people saw growing up was Windows, so that was the only OS in the universe". Whatever. When I was in school, we had teletype terminals and IBM DOS machines. There was no MS monopoly back then. I'm in my mid 30's so it's not like I'm talking about the dark ages of computing.
2) If you put Windows machines in schools, Apple will piss and moan about it. If you put Apple machines in schools, MS and everyone else will piss and moan about it. If you put Linux in schools, BSD folks will piss and moan about it. Face it, there is no OS on the planet that can go into schools that will get a 100% endorsement even within the free/open-source software world. Period.
3) Let's see what's more benefitial: average PC users receive a check for the $20 determined to be the "damage" we sustained as a result of MS's monopolistic actions, or kids in poor neighborhoods/schools get access to training, hardware, and computer related education that they would not be given access to otherwise. Hmmm... Let's see... (If you have to honestly think about it, you need to work on being more human and less greedy.)
4) I don't give half of a rat's ass if students learn to do word processing on Word instead of Abiword. I started off with DOS, then I moved to Windows, then I moved to Linux, and now I'm working with BSD and UNIX. I started off the same way these kids will start off, and despite all of that I'm not a Windows user. Gee, could it be possible that I had -- *GASP* -- freedom of choice? Reading comments posted here, you'd think that if MS puts Windows in classrooms that the people in those classes will nevereverEVER touch anything other than Windows. Get real, folks.
5) Windows is -- on the whole -- easier to use than Linux, *BSD, or UNIX. I say that as someone using these latter OSes daily and the former OS almost never. I don't let my preferences cloud the issue or induce prejudice against Windows, though. I don't care if you're more familiar with the latter OSes. Windows is easier to deal with for newbies than any of them. And until developers start putting the end-user experience in front of developer coolness (take a hint, free/open-source developers), this will continue to be a true statement.
5) Windows experience is more marketable right now than Linux/BSD/UNIX experience, and will continue to be that way for quite some time as far as I can tell. Unless companies completely ditch Windows and start over with a new OS (which will not happen, no matter how many op-ed pieces you read saying the opposite), it's going to be a long, long, LONG time before Linux/BSD/UNIX experience makes you more marketable on a global scale than Windows experience. And with the web services wave just about ready to rise, the OS people use will become less important than the browser it's running, so people will have less incentive to go through the IS/deployment/training nightmare associated with a company-wide OS switch.
Flame away...
The one big issue is that the programming environment is set up to run under DOS/Windows. I'm guessing Wine may be able to run it, but I've never tried. If you can get over your distaste for DOS/Windows (let's face it: most of us have at least one dual boot machine anyway), I can not recommend BASIC Stamps highly enough. They're true geek toys without being childish.
Come on, you know you wanna get some...
It amazes me that loners and folks with few (if any) people skills insist on getting into the computer science biz, thinking that it'll guarantee that they'll not have to deal with people, and if they do, the people they'll be dealing with will be other techies. Bah! What a load... Of all the industries (other than teaching the mentally disabled) that require extensive patience and the ability to tolerate the endless, repetitive questions of people not in the know, the computer science industry takes the prize. If you can't handle it, for God's sake DON'T GET INTO IT. Turn around, find a forest ranger job, and bring a laptop to hack on in your spare time if you still want to program.
If you want to get into the tech industry, read my words and burn them into your brain: YOU WILL ENCOUNTER IGNORANT PEOPLE, AND YOU WILL NEED TO BE PATIENT BECAUSE MANY OF THEM WILL *NEVER* LEARN. Deal with it. This is not an option, folks! The most ignorant, impossible to teach people use computers, and you -- being a techie -- will have a long string of them stuck to you like toilet paper on the bottom of your shoe. They won't learn no matter how many times you explain things to them, mostly because they expect you to be around forever to do their remembering for them. Cut them off if you wish, but bemoaning the fact that they exist only shows how clueless you are about the reality of being a techie in a technical industry.
There are always those folks who actually are capable of learning, but they don't know where to start looking. Patiently pointing them to docs helps. Not everyone knows that if they download a tarball, use an arcane tar command to extract it, use "cd" to change to a directory, then use "less" to view a file called "README" that their questions will be answered. If you've never seen a command line before, how would you want something like this explained to you? "Idiot, read the fscking README and then erase my software and never soil my web site with your plebian presence again!" Yeah, that's effective... And to think that if half of the effort of flaming the person went into patiently saying how to obtain docs, both you and the person trying to learn would be much better off.
... or is this perhaps your idea of "...how to fix it"?
As for "the majority of users are horridly ungreatful [sic]", not only are you 180 degrees off (most are extremely grateful for any tid bit of help you can throw their way), but I'll go so far as to say most developers -- the ones lacking people skills who got into the tech industry anyway -- are the problem. When someone asks for help, many times (s)he doesn't even know where to start looking for info. And on sites like SourceForge (to give an example), the UI is so un-intuitive that even clicking on a documentation link may get you no closer to documentation than reading source code. Inconsistency, docs that are hard to find (if any exist at all, and aren't cryptic as hell), illusions of grandeur as if the software you're porting/writing/supporting makes you a God, etc... The problem lies mostly with arrogant techies IMHO.
COMPSCI 101, huh? I guess that means you have school smarts. Street smarts beats school smarts in a situation like this, "chap". (And yes, I'm a professional working in the tech industry as a software engineer. I know what I say from experience, not from wild guesses...)
I've seen dings in boxes from UPS and FedEx before, but WOW, I'm surprised UPS was able to deliver your stuff even in the state it's in. Even the USPS puts damaged stuff in envelopes or other packaging material before delivery. The negligence on UPS' behalf extends beyond damaging your goods. That just plain sucks.
No more UPS for me...
I don't believe that resigning was an answer to anything. Afte reading his message on geocrawler, it seems that he's sick of a lot more than just Fink. I can't say I blame him, although reading some of his "evidence" links didn't exactly paint him in the most favorable light (even when I'm sick to death of people asking me dumb questions or making me justify every statement I make in a mail list, I try not to be as hostile as Chris was. Good grief, that guy has a MAJOR attitude problem).
I think someone like him really should stay out of the "people" business and stick to working behind the scenes for someone else. That's an honest statement, and is not meant to be a flame. He just doesn't have what it takes to deal with the inevitable cluseless newbie. Some "have it", but some (like him) will never work out in that arena.
The problem with most CS folks that I know is that they dive in and wallow in the stuff to the exclusion of everything else. Nobody can do one thing endlessly without getting fried, even if they think they can (try to convince a guy who's knee deep in coding the Master Widget that he needs to walk away from his computer and play lawn darts or do some other non-CS activity. It's like trying to take a bowl of food away from a dog while he's eating).
:)
Lots of folks here are recommending that you step away from CS for a week or two and do something else. I don't agree. Keep doing what you're doing, just don't do it exclusively. Spend time with your CS stuff, then at a certain point in the day turn off the monitor, go get a beer, watch a movie, go out with your significant other, whatever. The next day, get back to it, but be sure to spend some time during your day not even thinking about CS.
If more geeks would do this, we'd probably have less religious wars (KDE/GNOME, GPL/BSD, etc.). Perspective is a powerful thing, and unfortunately CS folks forget that there's more to the day-to-day grind than sitting in front of a computer. When your world shrinks that small, it's no wonder CS folks get so high-strung.
If you're well rounded (no fat jokes, thank you) you'll have a much better chance of not reaching the point of burn out. Become single-minded, and burn-out is inevitable.
If none of that works, try Paxil.