Within 1.5 years, we will see only 3 "major" players in the Linux distro market, with Debian taking a distant 3rd in revenue.
Revenue has hardly any influence on Debian development, and has such it can't be used to prove which distribution would be more popular in your hypothesis. I will package things and help development without revenue in mind, at least for my self. That's one of the biggest strenghts of Debian (well, it can also be the root of some 'features' in development timing): it isn't really dependent on bussiness pressure or traditional revenue models.
As such you can pretty much assume Debian will always be there, and that's, well, conforting:)
This Gentoo thing is getting out of control. I'm not sure if it is serious or if Gentoo references are a new kind of 'imagine a beowulf cluster of these!' Every damn article has a 'Gentoo r0cks' or 'why not Gentoo?'.
The downside is that is ships with CDE by default, which is an eyesore (it can be changed, provided you have root access). I wonder if Sol 9 is shipping with CDE or Gnome?
CDE almost certainly. GNOME 2 is not yet ready and they probably need more integration to include it. Anyway, as with Solaris 8, the "Bonus Software" CD pack that comes with the OS (or OE, whatever:) ) includes a CD "Exploring GNOME" that installs an "unsupported evaluation" of GNOME. Pretty slick, installed it at work, ppl are using the Sun boxen much more hapilly now.
BTW, that Bonus pack also includes the GNU utils, Emacs, even KDE. Also StarOffice (at least Solaris 8 did) and Netscape 6.
On a properly secured Domino server, you can't access mail from the server console even on Windows
Well, at work I use GNU/Linux in my personal box, and thus the only way I have to read mail is because they opened the Domino Webmail for me... of course it's much slower and makes reading and sending mail rather painful; due to security reasosn no POP or other method is allowed, so I am effectively incapable of reading mail like everybody else because I do not have a client.
I just wished that someone made a fetchmail alike program to download and send messages usgin the Domino protocol, allowing me to use my own mail program (hard because of the id file, etc).
This would be a lot cooler if *everything* about Quicktime were open (including codecs). It's pretty silly that I can run the streaming server on Linux but I have to go to Windows or Mac to view the content.
Amen brother.
This seems to be the trend... GNU/Linux is perceived as a server platform, as much as the commercial Unices are. I know several Unix admins that exclusevely use Windows as their desktop box using X servers/telnet/ssh to connect to the Unix boxes. Even they really can't view a Unix platform such as GNU/Linux as desktop (not because it doesn't have what it needs, but because they can't come to terms with it).
Take Lotus Notes... you can run Domino Server in Linux, but if you try to access the mail you are out of luck because Notes is Windows-only. Most desktop frontends end up being Windows-only, while the engine is running on some Unix. Hell, HP, IBM and other Unix vendors encourage this! Take mysql and CVS... there has been nice and friendly win32 graphical tools long before any was available in Unix. It seems people like it this way:P
In the end it is exactly as you said it: we end up powering the services and providing content that we can't view ourselves
Sorry about this, my co-worker thought it would be oh-so-funny to use my browser when I was away, and being a recent/. convert what else would he try to do?
It's interesting that the thing most new ppl know about/. is all this FP stuff... anyway it is so widely known that I guess it has become an integral part of/., and something thatn most ppl would strange if it stopped happening:)
I guess there could be a new subsription option... FP that couldn't get modded down AND that if indeed first post would give a bonus of +50 page views:)
cheers,
Look around for info on the U.S. government's declassified Tempest program. That shows how you can really do this, by sampling the radio emissions of the equipment. Any rapid switching creates radio waves, if you don't shield them effectively you may indeed leak information off site. There have been demonstrations of reading a CRT by the video monitors radio emissions
Indeed. Here is a program that implements just that. Tempest for Eliza is an interisting program... it actually played classical music on my AM radio using the monitor color intensity! There's a mod for mp3 even. Check it out.
Yes, I had the same need... in order to test a virus scanner I mailed BO2k to see how it worked.
It wasn't necessary though; every virus scanner should react to the EICAR anti-virus test file (she here). So if any of you ever need to test a virus scanner and have some management guy brething in your neck and raving about how using a real virus can compromise security use the EICAR file. Just mail him the virus personally by another mail gateway after that just to prove your point:)
... but until recently the majority of people doing IT jobs were insulated from them; I distinctly remeber a./ discussion about the need for unions in the IT field. Most ppl seemed to think that since chances were good that the demand was higher that the workforce available unions didn't made any sense... after all, we were all part of the 'New Economy', we laught at principles made in the XIX century my a bearded german! Most ppl couldn't even graps the principle of conflict between workers and bosses... after all, if ppl want best conditions, why, the Company is going to suffer, and then they will be out of job! Crazy fools!.
Now the same thing that gave birth to this kind of distinctive thinking is coming back for revenge. With the demand/workforce balance changing, and since most ppl in IT were oh-so-damn-liberal in what regards to workers rights - after all, they didn't need to - they are suffering the *same thing* that most other workers in traditional fields have suffered for *centuries*.
It's all so new.... but only to the ones that had illusions about the true nature of the relations between a worker and the guys in charge.
It's so pitifull to see - and I know them first-hand - ppl that during the 90's laughed at other ppls problems and said that they were badly-paid, unemployed, etc, because they were lazy and unfit now being in the damn some situation they joked about then.
Transnacional society, better opportunities? You bet. Capital has no nacionality, never had, so it already know how to play that game. The mantra of "being able to work in what country I want" is not so great when there are thousands of ppl doing the exact thing you do for less money.
(oh, and yes, I'm marxist, just in case someone misses the point and 'acuses me' of such).
Of course `rm -R *` isn't enough -- it just unlinks files, but doesn't delete datablocks. To delete datablocks, try the -P option which overwrites the file data before unlinking. Unfortunately, this option is not available on GNU `rm` which is used on most Linux systems.
It would be trivial to add that to GNU rm, but it's futile since there is another gnu tool for this purpose called GNU shred.
From the GNU shred info node: shred overwrites devices or files, to help prevent even very
expensive hardware from recovering the data.
Ordinarily when you remove a file (*note rm invocation::), the data
is not actually destroyed. Only the index listing where the file is
stored is destroyed, and the storage is made available for reuse.
There are undelete utilities that will attempt to reconstruct the index
and can bring the file back if the parts were not reused.
GNU shred is very featerful, as costumary in GNU utils, and has many flags to modify the behaviour.
BSD ppl are always praising the 'Unix Way' of small utilities that do a very defined job and nothing more, and hate the extended features that GNU utils provide; in this case it's BSD rm that is doing something that could be done by another tool by adding a flag! Horror!
Seriously, GNU shred is a good tool, and it can receive some interesting flags that a simple rm -P doesn't support.
I don't think so. From RMS himself (in some list, can't remember which, about the name 'Debian GNU/Hurd'):
GNU and GNU/Hurd are two names for the same system; the latter name
emphasizes the fact that the kernel is the Hurd. It is useful to
emphasize that when making a contrast with GNU/Linux. In this
context, we want to make that emphasis.
Enough said.
fsmunoz
It's all about Freedom here...
on
SourceForge Drifting
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
People, the problem here is not that everybody will feel bad about SourceForge (the site) containing non-free components; if you feel that it's OK and that it really doesn't matter then the FSF Europe article is not really aimed at you (well, it is in the sense that it tries to explain why it is a Bad Thing(tm)).
The problem here is with people that hosted their free software projects in SourceForge (and we all are in debt to VAfor that) not only because it was a very good platform to host a project on but also because it was free software... if the version of the software that is used on SF.net is not free software than it raises several problems for some people (myself included).
I hope this is not the case, but there seems to be a trend on releasing free software, make ppl use it extensively and then close the source when tested. I'm not saying that SF is one of those situations (VA maintains a free version AFAIK), but still, ppl are nowadays more aware of this kind of drifting, and that makes them suspicious.
People seem to forget that the FSF/FSFE view on things is pretty clear and documented... I don't know why people seem surprised when articles like that one are submitted. I for one totally stand behind Loïc's words, and share his concern.
Having one of the most known free software development centres running on a proprietary version of a platform isn't really very flatering for free software as a whole... 'see, they don't even use their free software to host their bloody code!'-type of comments come to mind.
I really fail to see all the fuss; *any* GNU project should know that refering to proprietary software is a no-no; I'm not arguing here that in same situation one can let it slide, but it's a knwon fact that a GNU program can't refer to a proprietary software.
It's preety explicit. For example:
A GNU program should not recommend use of any non-free program, and it should not refer the user to any non-free documentation for free software. The need for free documentation to go with free software is now a major focus of the GNU project; to show that we are serious about the need for free documentation, we must not contradict our position by recommending use of documentation that isn't free.
and
A GNU program should not recommend use of any non-free program. We can't stop some people from writing proprietary programs, or stop other people from using them. But we can and should avoid helping to advertise them to new customers.
Sometimes it is important to mention how to build your package on top of some non-free operating system or other non-free base package. In such cases, please mention the name of the non-free package or system in the briefest possible way. Don't include any references for where to find more information about the proprietary program. The goal should be that people already using the proprietary program will get the advice they need about how to use your free program, while people who don't already use the proprietary program will not see anything to encourage them to take an interest in it.
Likewise, a GNU package should not refer the user to any non-free documentation for free software. The need for free documentation to go with free software is now a major focus of the GNU project; to show that we are serious about the need for free documentation, we must not undermine our position by recommending use of documentation that isn't free.
Anyway, ppl are always judging what RMS 'real intention' is, etc. Nobody really checks what he really said or did. Most of the times RMS name is vented the comments are all a FUD feast.
Best Regards,
Just to give my input on the assorted comments about GNU/HURD:
GNU/HURD should indeed be called just GNU, since it's the GNU OS proper; RMS said recently in a mailing-list that although this is the case one should use GNU/HURD whenever there is need to differenciate (e.g. "Debian GNU" would be awkward and misleading, hence GNU/Linux and GNU/HURD). Apart from that, the HURD is indeed GNU (since the kernel is part of the GNU system there is no need to use GNU/HURD, unlike GNU/Linux where there is such a need).
Usability: how many people have actually tried installing and running GNU/HURD? From the comments, not a lot... Sure, there are still several things missing, but the concept of the HURD is elegant and interesting enough to make it worthwhile... the fundamental servers are already done, many interesting translators are done and others being developed (think for example of the ftp translator... that give system wide transparent FTP, with no modification on any user program...). All the gnu shell and text utils are there, and so is Emacs and hundrends of other programs, including XFree. I wouldn't call this 'useless'...
Some limitations and shortcomings are still there, and some of them probably give the appearance of a slowdown in development (threads, the 1GB limit for the partitions that the it can handle and the ppp code); this will be hopefully soon solved (I would say very soon). The truth is that, apart from the hardware support - that will be greatly improved with oskit-mach - and some programs that depend on libs that are hard to port everything is available. I can browse the web on GNU/HURD; I can program in GNU/HURD; I can do huge ammounts of important stuff while using GNU/HURD, and all this without even going for HURD specific features that are very intriging and useful (again, servers and translators come to mind... check the GNU/HURD website for info on all this.
Instalation and packaging is pure Debian, so nobody should have major problems (always keeping in mind that it's still being developed).
All in all I'm very pleased with the status of it and the possibilities it gives (and the ones that are to follow).
Try it; get involved; you could just come to like it.
Yeah, but that means you'll first have to walk around your car a few times in the morning before you can start it...
Or you would plug the whole damn apparatus to the lighter in the car... this way you would still be petrol-dependent, sure, but with a pair of power-generating boots and a bagpack filled with liquid Hydrogen you would still look cool and, er, alternative:)
This boots could generate the initial energy needed by this Hydrogen-Based Rotary Engine, and with that the uptime of this IBM Linux clock would be astonishing (and with that kind of energy, imagine a Beowulf cluster of those!)!
This things do not happen be accident... people moan but eventually/. closes the circle!
Licensing - FreeBSD uses the BSD license for its core, which allows incorporation of the code into proprietary, binary-only products. The Linux core components use the GPL or LGPL licenses, which disallow such incorporation.
Indeed, that I would say is one of the things that make both groups different in atitude and outlook (only mildly so, of course).
Distribution and development - the FreeBSD core is developed and distributed as a complete OS. There is only a single FreeBSD distro, and it comes straight from the FreeBSD team. Linux is developed piecemeal by lots of different groups - the kernel group is quite separate from the libc group, which is quite separate from the group that develops the standard command-line utilities. With Linux, it is up to each individual distributor (of which there are many) to integrate all the various pieces into a coherent OS.
Ummmm...... I don't agree. FreeBSD is distributed as a complete OS, such as OpenBSD or NetBSD or Debian or RedHat... now, the twist here is to define 'core OS'; if we stick with 'kernel plus shell and several other utilities that makes it useful' then all of them are alike: *BSD with BSD utils and GNU/Linux with GNU utils (in both cases the utils are developed by the a single group of people); now, the kernel itself is developed separatly, but I wouldn't call it 'quite separate' from the glibc group - onw wrong turn in glibc and the kernel doesn't compile... if you think of it, in GNU/Linux even the compiler is from the same group of ppl (i.e. the GNU Project).
An in any event distribution's like Debian take policy and integration to an extreme, so the whole dist really is quite coherent. Apart from the kernel and utils, all the other stuff is the same for both, since 90% of them are used in both OS's, and are all from different people, etc.
Maturity - the BSDs have a history that goes all the way back to the 70's, and in some places it shows - notably in the virtual memory subsystem, which takes a long time and a lot of fiddling and testing to get right. Currently the FreeBSD VM system is much better than that in Linux. However, Linux gets a lot more active development due to its popularity. Only two or three years ago, Linux was far behind FreeBSD in terms of its TCP/IP stack. Things change very fast in the Linux world however, and it is arguable that Linux 2.4 now equals or surpasses FreeBSD in this department.
Very well said.
SMP scalability - this is an area that FreeBSD is working on heavily, but currently Linux is far in the lead with this, scaling well up to 8 processors, whilst FreeBSD does relatively poorly even with just 2 processors. This will change when FreeBSD 5.0 is released, which incorporates much of the very good BSDi SMP code.
Indeed, an area that - from what I have red - BSD comes from a late start but get's closes by the month.
Packaging systems, ports vs. apt - the BSD ports tree is an exceptionally powerful way of automatically distibuting and updating software, far in advance of anything commercially available. Debian's (and now Conectiva's and Mandrake's) apt system rivals or surpasses it, but it is not standard in all Linux distros. Plus, in Linux, there is still a great divide over which back-end packaging system to use - either RPM or deb, and the overall layout of the filesystem, which, despite standardization efforts, still varies from distro to distro.
The BSD ports are indeed wonderful, and the only other packaging method that rivals is apt. Why do I say this? Because both apt and the ports are wonderful not just because 'they get stuff from the net', or even because they compile the source for the host, etc. They are wonderful - for me - because not only do they do that but also one can be sure that every care has been put on making the said program compile/install according to a strict predefined set of policies and rules set by the ppl in charge
You are right on this whole deb vs rpm vs rpm(Mandrake, incompat.)vs rpm(SuSE, incompat) vs rpm (incompat ad nauseam). The filesystem likewise. This was supposed to get fixed by the FSHS and things like that, but it will be hard - on the other hand GNU/Hurd has removed/usr from the FS:)
Portability - Linux has been ported to just about every architecture you could think of, and can be used on everything from a wristwatch all the way up to a big IBM mainframe. FreeBSD has... not, preferring to concentrate almost entirely on the Intel architecture. NetBSD rivals or surpasses Linux in terms of its portability, but is quite distinct from FreeBSD and has its own set of pros and cons in other areas.
Isn't NetBSD's kernel the same as in FreeBSD? Porting is a lot of trouble and I can relate to FreeBSD developers not wanting the extra headache of 30 different ports, but if they really wnated to, well, it would be possible I suppose (could be severely misguided here though).
Concentrating on ix86 is always bad IMHO... one should at least have it run on Unix 64-bits workstations, if not only for historical legacy.
Ease of installation - the commercial Linux distributors have it here. With some, it is as simple as powering up, inserting a CD, and getting a fully-working desktop or server system 20 minutes later. FreeBSD requires a significant amount more work to install it. However, this is no more difficult than the noncommercial Linux distros (Debian or Slackware).
I found the FreeBSD install rather well streamlined; in fact, now that you mention it, it did remind me how Debian intall is (not Progeny, that is the probably the best 'insert and run' dist I have seen); eventually Debian could use Progeny stuff, but then again.... gotta love curses menus:).
Ease of instalation (i.e. in what eye candy and the like are concerned) say very little about the OS really...having an OS that installs in 4 minutes but is a nightmare to operate, now THAT says a lot.
I don't agree with the GPL. While it certainly does standardize open-source licensing, for any free software organization to become legalistic about another free software organizaion not following their terms to the letter is like biting the hand that feeds.
The GPL was made with a goal in mind; the exact terms are like they are (and keep changing slightly) because the FSF actually has lawyers and actually needs a decent license that hold ups in court or similar situations, and not just a general "Do what you want and don't bug me" thing that not only defeats the meaning and purpose of the GPL but also is virtually void legally.
I can however understand your disliking of the GPL (i.e. I admit that ppl have reasons for not liking it), but we have to view the GPL in face of the FSF's goals (the world 'goals' and 'agenda' and constantly being said to scare people about the FSF.. so the FSF has goals? So what? It's because they have goals and they take actions to pursue them that we have the software in the first place!).
The FSF doesn't own any of the things covered by the GPL.
You are wrong here (probably this was not exactly what you meant). The FSF is owner of *lots* of software under the GPL; in fact all the major software that is part of the GNU system is "owned" (i.e. has copyright asigned to) by the FSF. The examples are so many and of so well known and fundamental programs that I will not need to enumerate them. And this ownership isn't surpising either... people sometimes talk about "the FSF" like the FSF is some kind of rigid corporation with a fixed set of people... tha's just not the case. Many ppl assign the copyright to the FSF because they want to, and in that sense the FSF is just about everyone that believes in the FSF goals and contributes code/documentation/testing/etc to the GNU project. The FSF is, grosso modo, a community of people joined around Free Software (and a specific view on how it should be, granted), and is thus much more fluid that people like to believe.
They do, however, feel compelled to dictate terms of useage to the people who are making their software publically available. This shows, to me, little more then slightly masked greed.
They do not feel compeled to dictate, thay have legitimate concerns about breachs on the GPL, even though in this situation they are not copyright owners. Making software 'publically available' counts very little per se in a free software perspective. Is interesting to note that many people are very eaguer to see the GPL tested on court (and many ppl would love to see it lose) but do not like to see the FSF settling things outside them. If the FSF doesn't produce a statement about what they are doing then they are 'following their agenda' and 'locking out the community'; if they do they are 'enforcing their views' and 'trying to get support from the community because they can't make it themselves'. Honestly, I fail to see what 'community' is this one, since we all know that that the concept of what is free software (among lots of other things) are totally distinct for ppl inside the 'community'; the FSF as a community, on the other hand, has a much more solid point of view and defined ideas (like most of the BSD ppl).
Greed? If the FSF refused to say anything just because they aren't the copyright owners ppl would cry havoc with 'they are abandoning other ppl just because they didn't assign the copyright to them, serves you to see their hidden agenda, etc,etc'. The FSF has a pragmatic view on things, once again because of it's well defined goals and ideas (which are of course questionable and ppl are free to like them or not).
I've released a few software programs that were very, very specialized, under a license I wrote myself...a 1-liner. "You can do whatever you want to this program, provided that you give me credit for making it in the first place and you don't blame me for anything wrong in it, known or not." No complaints...
Why should there be? In what way does that prove anything about the GPL or the FSF?
The FSF seems to have gotten too big of an ego for its own good. Someone needs to cut them back down to size, in my opinion.
LOL. The ppl who delight in using software that they obtain freely and then question the very essence of what makes the software available to them are the ones with an oversized ego. To think that someone should change the FSF just because a present hype and coolness of being and anti-GNU badass is laughable.
Cut them to their size? Hardly. The size of the FSF is mainly symbolic and because of that, and as long as they continue with their course of action, virtually impossible to 'cut down'.
Slashdot Mirror
Within 1.5 years, we will see only 3 "major" players in the Linux distro market, with Debian taking a distant 3rd in revenue.
:)
Revenue has hardly any influence on Debian development, and has such it can't be used to prove which distribution would be more popular in your hypothesis. I will package things and help development without revenue in mind, at least for my self. That's one of the biggest strenghts of Debian (well, it can also be the root of some 'features' in development timing): it isn't really dependent on bussiness pressure or traditional revenue models.
As such you can pretty much assume Debian will always be there, and that's, well, conforting
regards,
fsmunoz
This Gentoo thing is getting out of control. I'm not sure if it is serious or if Gentoo references are a new kind of 'imagine a beowulf cluster of these!'
:)
Every damn article has a 'Gentoo r0cks' or 'why not Gentoo?'.
This Gentoo threat needs to be delt with
The downside is that is ships with CDE by default, which is an eyesore (it can be changed, provided you have root access). I wonder if Sol 9 is shipping with CDE or Gnome?
:) ) includes a CD "Exploring GNOME" that installs an "unsupported evaluation" of GNOME. Pretty slick, installed it at work, ppl are using the Sun boxen much more hapilly now.
CDE almost certainly. GNOME 2 is not yet ready and they probably need more integration to include it. Anyway, as with Solaris 8, the "Bonus Software" CD pack that comes with the OS (or OE, whatever
BTW, that Bonus pack also includes the GNU utils, Emacs, even KDE. Also StarOffice (at least Solaris 8 did) and Netscape 6.
Regards,
fsmunoz
Enough said, laughed my ass out :)
fsm
On a properly secured Domino server, you can't access mail from the server console even on Windows
Well, at work I use GNU/Linux in my personal box, and thus the only way I have to read mail is because they opened the Domino Webmail for me... of course it's much slower and makes reading and sending mail rather painful; due to security reasosn no POP or other method is allowed, so I am effectively incapable of reading mail like everybody else because I do not have a client.
I just wished that someone made a fetchmail alike program to download and send messages usgin the Domino protocol, allowing me to use my own mail program (hard because of the id file, etc).
cheers,
fsm
This would be a lot cooler if *everything* about Quicktime were open (including codecs). It's pretty silly that I can run the streaming server on Linux but I have to go to Windows or Mac to view the content.
:P
Amen brother.
This seems to be the trend... GNU/Linux is perceived as a server platform, as much as the commercial Unices are. I know several Unix admins that exclusevely use Windows as their desktop box using X servers/telnet/ssh to connect to the Unix boxes. Even they really can't view a Unix platform such as GNU/Linux as desktop (not because it doesn't have what it needs, but because they can't come to terms with it).
Take Lotus Notes... you can run Domino Server in Linux, but if you try to access the mail you are out of luck because Notes is Windows-only.
Most desktop frontends end up being Windows-only, while the engine is running on some Unix. Hell, HP, IBM and other Unix vendors encourage this!
Take mysql and CVS... there has been nice and friendly win32 graphical tools long before any was available in Unix. It seems people like it this way
In the end it is exactly as you said it: we end up powering the services and providing content that we can't view ourselves
cheers,
fsm
Sorry about this, my co-worker thought it would be oh-so-funny to use my browser when I was away, and being a recent /. convert what else would he try to do?
/. is all this FP stuff... anyway it is so widely known that I guess it has become an integral part of /., and something thatn most ppl would strange if it stopped happening :)
:)
It's interesting that the thing most new ppl know about
I guess there could be a new subsription option... FP that couldn't get modded down AND that if indeed first post would give a bonus of +50 page views
cheers,
fsmunoz
Frost Pist!
It wasn't that hard, really...
Propz to all undead bitches.
Suck it down!
--
.::filesystem::.
Look around for info on the U.S. government's declassified Tempest program. That shows how you can really do this, by sampling the radio emissions of the equipment. Any rapid switching creates radio waves, if you don't shield them effectively you may indeed leak information off site. There have been demonstrations of reading a CRT by the video monitors radio emissions
Indeed. Here is a program that implements just that. Tempest for Eliza is an interisting program... it actually played classical music on my AM radio using the monitor color intensity! There's a mod for mp3 even. Check it out.
cheers,
fsm
Yes, I had the same need... in order to test a virus scanner I mailed BO2k to see how it worked. :)
It wasn't necessary though; every virus scanner should react to the EICAR anti-virus test file (she here). So if any of you ever need to test a virus scanner and have some management guy brething in your neck and raving about how using a real virus can compromise security use the EICAR file. Just mail him the virus personally by another mail gateway after that just to prove your point
fsm
... but until recently the majority of people doing IT jobs were insulated from them; I distinctly remeber a ./ discussion about the need for unions in the IT field. Most ppl seemed to think that since chances were good that the demand was higher that the workforce available unions didn't made any sense... after all, we were all part of the 'New Economy', we laught at principles made in the XIX century my a bearded german! Most ppl couldn't even graps the principle of conflict between workers and bosses... after all, if ppl want best conditions, why, the Company is going to suffer, and then they will be out of job! Crazy fools!.
Now the same thing that gave birth to this kind of distinctive thinking is coming back for revenge. With the demand/workforce balance changing, and since most ppl in IT were oh-so-damn-liberal in what regards to workers rights - after all, they didn't need to - they are suffering the *same thing* that most other workers in traditional fields have suffered for *centuries*.
It's all so new.... but only to the ones that had illusions about the true nature of the relations between a worker and the guys in charge.
It's so pitifull to see - and I know them first-hand - ppl that during the 90's laughed at other ppls problems and said that they were badly-paid, unemployed, etc, because they were lazy and unfit now being in the damn some situation they joked about then.
Transnacional society, better opportunities? You bet. Capital has no nacionality, never had, so it already know how to play that game. The mantra of "being able to work in what country I want" is not so great when there are thousands of ppl doing the exact thing you do for less money.
(oh, and yes, I'm marxist, just in case someone misses the point and 'acuses me' of such).
fsm
From the GNU shred info node:
shred overwrites devices or files, to help prevent even very expensive hardware from recovering the data.
Ordinarily when you remove a file (*note rm invocation::), the data is not actually destroyed. Only the index listing where the file is stored is destroyed, and the storage is made available for reuse. There are undelete utilities that will attempt to reconstruct the index and can bring the file back if the parts were not reused.
GNU shred is very featerful, as costumary in GNU utils, and has many flags to modify the behaviour.
BSD ppl are always praising the 'Unix Way' of small utilities that do a very defined job and nothing more, and hate the extended features that GNU utils provide; in this case it's BSD rm that is doing something that could be done by another tool by adding a flag! Horror!
Seriously, GNU shred is a good tool, and it can receive some interesting flags that a simple rm -P doesn't support.
cheers,
fsmunoz
There is an XFree port NOW! It's right there on the interview... X works, window-managers work (WindowMaker, BlackBox, etc).
GNOME and KDE need pthreads (again, right there on the interview) before anything mroe can be attempted.
fsmunoz
The important parts:
Charming.
fsmunoz
Enough said.
fsmunoz
People, the problem here is not that everybody will feel bad about SourceForge (the site) containing non-free components; if you feel that it's OK and that it really doesn't matter then the FSF Europe article is not really aimed at you (well, it is in the sense that it tries to explain why it is a Bad Thing(tm)).
The problem here is with people that hosted their free software projects in SourceForge (and we all are in debt to VAfor that) not only because it was a very good platform to host a project on but also because it was free software... if the version of the software that is used on SF.net is not free software than it raises several problems for some people (myself included).
I hope this is not the case, but there seems to be a trend on releasing free software, make ppl use it extensively and then close the source when tested. I'm not saying that SF is one of those situations (VA maintains a free version AFAIK), but still, ppl are nowadays more aware of this kind of drifting, and that makes them suspicious.
People seem to forget that the FSF/FSFE view on things is pretty clear and documented... I don't know why people seem surprised when articles like that one are submitted. I for one totally stand behind Loïc's words, and share his concern.
Having one of the most known free software development centres running on a proprietary version of a platform isn't really very flatering for free software as a whole... 'see, they don't even use their free software to host their bloody code!'-type of comments come to mind.
fsmunoz
I really fail to see all the fuss; *any* GNU project should know that refering to proprietary software is a no-no; I'm not arguing here that in same situation one can let it slide, but it's a knwon fact that a GNU program can't refer to a proprietary software.
It's preety explicit. For example:
A GNU program should not recommend use of any non-free program, and it should not refer the user to any non-free documentation for free software. The need for free documentation to go with free software is now a major focus of the GNU project; to show that we are serious about the need for free documentation, we must not contradict our position by recommending use of documentation that isn't free.
and
A GNU program should not recommend use of any non-free program. We can't stop some people from writing proprietary programs, or stop other people from using them. But we can and should avoid helping to advertise them to new customers. Sometimes it is important to mention how to build your package on top of some non-free operating system or other non-free base package. In such cases, please mention the name of the non-free package or system in the briefest possible way. Don't include any references for where to find more information about the proprietary program. The goal should be that people already using the proprietary program will get the advice they need about how to use your free program, while people who don't already use the proprietary program will not see anything to encourage them to take an interest in it. Likewise, a GNU package should not refer the user to any non-free documentation for free software. The need for free documentation to go with free software is now a major focus of the GNU project; to show that we are serious about the need for free documentation, we must not undermine our position by recommending use of documentation that isn't free.
Anyway, ppl are always judging what RMS 'real intention' is, etc. Nobody really checks what he really said or did. Most of the times RMS name is vented the comments are all a FUD feast.
Best Regards,
fsmunoz
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GNU/HURD should indeed be called just GNU, since it's the GNU OS proper; RMS said recently in a mailing-list that although this is the case one should use GNU/HURD whenever there is need to differenciate (e.g. "Debian GNU" would be awkward and misleading, hence GNU/Linux and GNU/HURD). Apart from that, the HURD is indeed GNU (since the kernel is part of the GNU system there is no need to use GNU/HURD, unlike GNU/Linux where there is such a need).
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Usability: how many people have actually tried installing and running GNU/HURD? From the comments, not a lot... Sure, there are still several things missing, but the concept of the HURD is elegant and interesting enough to make it worthwhile... the fundamental servers are already done, many interesting translators are done and others being developed (think for example of the ftp translator... that give system wide transparent FTP, with no modification on any user program...). All the gnu shell and text utils are there, and so is Emacs and hundrends of other programs, including XFree. I wouldn't call this 'useless'...
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Some limitations and shortcomings are still there, and some of them probably give the appearance of a slowdown in development (threads, the 1GB limit for the partitions that the it can handle and the ppp code); this will be hopefully soon solved (I would say very soon). The truth is that, apart from the hardware support - that will be greatly improved with oskit-mach - and some programs that depend on libs that are hard to port everything is available. I can browse the web on GNU/HURD; I can program in GNU/HURD; I can do huge ammounts of important stuff while using GNU/HURD, and all this without even going for HURD specific features that are very intriging and useful (again, servers and translators come to mind... check the GNU/HURD website for info on all this.
Instalation and packaging is pure Debian, so nobody should have major problems (always keeping in mind that it's still being developed).All in all I'm very pleased with the status of it and the possibilities it gives (and the ones that are to follow).
Try it; get involved; you could just come to like it.
Yeah, but that means you'll first have to walk around your car a few times in the morning before you can start it...
:)
Or you would plug the whole damn apparatus to the lighter in the car... this way you would still be petrol-dependent, sure, but with a pair of power-generating boots and a bagpack filled with liquid Hydrogen you would still look cool and, er, alternative
This boots could generate the initial energy needed by this Hydrogen-Based Rotary Engine, and with that the uptime of this IBM Linux clock would be astonishing (and with that kind of energy, imagine a Beowulf cluster of those!)!
/. closes the circle!
This things do not happen be accident... people moan but eventually
Well, just to give my view on this :)
/usr from the FS :)
:).
Licensing - FreeBSD uses the BSD license for its core, which allows incorporation of the code into proprietary, binary-only products. The Linux core components use the GPL or LGPL licenses, which disallow such incorporation.
Indeed, that I would say is one of the things that make both groups different in atitude and outlook (only mildly so, of course).
Distribution and development - the FreeBSD core is developed and distributed as a complete OS. There is only a single FreeBSD distro, and it comes straight from the FreeBSD team. Linux is developed piecemeal by lots of different groups - the kernel group is quite separate from the libc group, which is quite separate from the group that develops the standard command-line utilities. With Linux, it is up to each individual distributor (of which there are many) to integrate all the various pieces into a coherent OS.
Ummmm...... I don't agree. FreeBSD is distributed as a complete OS, such as OpenBSD or NetBSD or Debian or RedHat... now, the twist here is to define 'core OS'; if we stick with 'kernel plus shell and several other utilities that makes it useful' then all of them are alike: *BSD with BSD utils and GNU/Linux with GNU utils (in both cases the utils are developed by the a single group of people); now, the kernel itself is developed separatly, but I wouldn't call it 'quite separate' from the glibc group - onw wrong turn in glibc and the kernel doesn't compile... if you think of it, in GNU/Linux even the compiler is from the same group of ppl (i.e. the GNU Project).
An in any event distribution's like Debian take policy and integration to an extreme, so the whole dist really is quite coherent.
Apart from the kernel and utils, all the other stuff is the same for both, since 90% of them are used in both OS's, and are all from different people, etc.
Maturity - the BSDs have a history that goes all the way back to the 70's, and in some places it shows - notably in the virtual memory subsystem, which takes a long time and a lot of fiddling and testing to get right. Currently the FreeBSD VM system is much better than that in Linux. However, Linux gets a lot more active development due to its popularity. Only two or three years ago, Linux was far behind FreeBSD in terms of its TCP/IP stack. Things change very fast in the Linux world however, and it is arguable that Linux 2.4 now equals or surpasses FreeBSD in this department.
Very well said.
SMP scalability - this is an area that FreeBSD is working on heavily, but currently Linux is far in the lead with this, scaling well up to 8 processors, whilst FreeBSD does relatively poorly even with just 2 processors. This will change when FreeBSD 5.0 is released, which incorporates much of the very good BSDi SMP code.
Indeed, an area that - from what I have red - BSD comes from a late start but get's closes by the month.
Packaging systems, ports vs. apt - the BSD ports tree is an exceptionally powerful way of automatically distibuting and updating software, far in advance of anything commercially available. Debian's (and now Conectiva's and Mandrake's) apt system rivals or surpasses it, but it is not standard in all Linux distros. Plus, in Linux, there is still a great divide over which back-end packaging system to use - either RPM or deb, and the overall layout of the filesystem, which, despite standardization efforts, still varies from distro to distro.
The BSD ports are indeed wonderful, and the only other packaging method that rivals is apt. Why do I say this? Because both apt and the ports are wonderful not just because 'they get stuff from the net', or even because they compile the source for the host, etc. They are wonderful - for me - because not only do they do that but also one can be sure that every care has been put on making the said program compile/install according to a strict predefined set of policies and rules set by the ppl in charge
You are right on this whole deb vs rpm vs rpm(Mandrake, incompat.)vs rpm(SuSE, incompat) vs rpm (incompat ad nauseam). The filesystem likewise. This was supposed to get fixed by the FSHS and things like that, but it will be hard - on the other hand GNU/Hurd has removed
Portability - Linux has been ported to just about every architecture you could think of, and can be used on everything from a wristwatch all the way up to a big IBM mainframe. FreeBSD has... not, preferring to concentrate almost entirely on the Intel architecture. NetBSD rivals or surpasses Linux in terms of its portability, but is quite distinct from FreeBSD and has its own set of pros and cons in other areas.
Isn't NetBSD's kernel the same as in FreeBSD? Porting is a lot of trouble and I can relate to FreeBSD developers not wanting the extra headache of 30 different ports, but if they really wnated to, well, it would be possible I suppose (could be severely misguided here though).
Concentrating on ix86 is always bad IMHO... one should at least have it run on Unix 64-bits workstations, if not only for historical legacy.
Ease of installation - the commercial Linux distributors have it here. With some, it is as simple as powering up, inserting a CD, and getting a fully-working desktop or server system 20 minutes later. FreeBSD requires a significant amount more work to install it. However, this is no more difficult than the noncommercial Linux distros (Debian or Slackware).
I found the FreeBSD install rather well streamlined; in fact, now that you mention it, it did remind me how Debian intall is (not Progeny, that is the probably the best 'insert and run' dist I have seen); eventually Debian could use Progeny stuff, but then again.... gotta love curses menus
Ease of instalation (i.e. in what eye candy and the like are concerned) say very little about the OS really...having an OS that installs in 4 minutes but is a nightmare to operate, now THAT says a lot.
Best Regards,
fsmunoz
I don't agree with the GPL. While it certainly does standardize open-source licensing, for any free software organization to become legalistic about another free software organizaion not following their terms to the letter is like biting the hand that feeds.
The GPL was made with a goal in mind; the exact terms are like they are (and keep changing slightly) because the FSF actually has lawyers and actually needs a decent license that hold ups in court or similar situations, and not just a general "Do what you want and don't bug me" thing that not only defeats the meaning and purpose of the GPL but also is virtually void legally.
I can however understand your disliking of the GPL (i.e. I admit that ppl have reasons for not liking it), but we have to view the GPL in face of the FSF's goals (the world 'goals' and 'agenda' and constantly being said to scare people about the FSF.. so the FSF has goals? So what? It's because they have goals and they take actions to pursue them that we have the software in the first place!).
The FSF doesn't own any of the things covered by the GPL.
You are wrong here (probably this was not exactly what you meant). The FSF is owner of *lots* of software under the GPL; in fact all the major software that is part of the GNU system is "owned" (i.e. has copyright asigned to) by the FSF. The examples are so many and of so well known and fundamental programs that I will not need to enumerate them. And this ownership isn't surpising either... people sometimes talk about "the FSF" like the FSF is some kind of rigid corporation with a fixed set of people... tha's just not the case. Many ppl assign the copyright to the FSF because they want to, and in that sense the FSF is just about everyone that believes in the FSF goals and contributes code/documentation/testing/etc to the GNU project. The FSF is, grosso modo, a community of people joined around Free Software (and a specific view on how it should be, granted), and is thus much more fluid that people like to believe.
They do, however, feel compelled to dictate terms of useage to the people who are making their software publically available. This shows, to me, little more then slightly masked greed.
They do not feel compeled to dictate, thay have legitimate concerns about breachs on the GPL, even though in this situation they are not copyright owners. Making software 'publically available' counts very little per se in a free software perspective. Is interesting to note that many people are very eaguer to see the GPL tested on court (and many ppl would love to see it lose) but do not like to see the FSF settling things outside them. If the FSF doesn't produce a statement about what they are doing then they are 'following their agenda' and 'locking out the community'; if they do they are 'enforcing their views' and 'trying to get support from the community because they can't make it themselves'. Honestly, I fail to see what 'community' is this one, since we all know that that the concept of what is free software (among lots of other things) are totally distinct for ppl inside the 'community'; the FSF as a community, on the other hand, has a much more solid point of view and defined ideas (like most of the BSD ppl).
Greed? If the FSF refused to say anything just because they aren't the copyright owners ppl would cry havoc with 'they are abandoning other ppl just because they didn't assign the copyright to them, serves you to see their hidden agenda, etc,etc'. The FSF has a pragmatic view on things, once again because of it's well defined goals and ideas (which are of course questionable and ppl are free to like them or not).
I've released a few software programs that were very, very specialized, under a license I wrote myself...a 1-liner. "You can do whatever you want to this program, provided that you give me credit for making it in the first place and you don't blame me for anything wrong in it, known or not." No complaints...
Why should there be? In what way does that prove anything about the GPL or the FSF?
The FSF seems to have gotten too big of an ego for its own good. Someone needs to cut them back down to size, in my opinion.
LOL. The ppl who delight in using software that they obtain freely and then question the very essence of what makes the software available to them are the ones with an oversized ego. To think that someone should change the FSF just because a present hype and coolness of being and anti-GNU badass is laughable.
Cut them to their size? Hardly. The size of the FSF is mainly symbolic and because of that, and as long as they continue with their course of action, virtually impossible to 'cut down'.
yours,
fsm
fsmunoz@sdf.lonestar.org