Not because it's someone going broke - because it's true.
I personally have experienced similar. I have a *killer* business plan. A company that could turn first operating quarter profit without difficulty - minimum overhead, maximum ROI (return on investment). Brought it to three or four different VC's, and they all said 'we're not interested.'
This idea is really a *great* idea! It would be so simple to make it nearly forgery proof, it would make processing easier, everything about it is beneficial in some way! It's the perfect solution to hundreds of problems. But it would put people out of jobs possibly, and it's not a, as it was put, sexy project.
To put it bluntly, that's bullshit. So what if it's not sexy? It's profitable and good ROI and financial (EPS, etc) is FAR more important than marketing and such.
Maybe we should take up a fund to help Jim start this business. Jim, if you're reading this, please email me - I'd like to help any way I can.
We need to help the *real* innovators in the computer world, like Jim, instead of listening to these marketing people telling us what innovation is. Like I said, I've been down this road before, and I wish anyone going down it the best of luck. Take care, and have a merry (insert celebrated holiday here).
To put it bluntly, see the subject. It won't work. It can't work.
Why?
Microsoft is too big, and too powerful. What will a breakup do to them? Well, there's two options.
One; the smaller companies will duke it out till one buys up the rest, and we're back to the Microsoft we all know and loathe.
Two; the smaller companies simply 'collaborate' on everything (and I do mean everything) resulting in the same problem we have now; everything being tied together inseperably.
A breakup is not the answer. The only answer that I can think of is market forbiddance. What do I mean? I mean Microsoft needs to be banned from certain markets. Productivity software, "full featured" web browsers, and proprietary programming languages.
What good will that do, beyond limiting Microsoft's ability to compete (as I'm sure everyone sees it) and taking away some very effective revenue? It'll force Microsoft to stop stagnating and actually INNOVATE again. Yes, there was a time Microsoft was being innovative. FoxPro was the first relational database application that not only could spit out binaries, but ran on multiple operating systems INCLUDING Xenix286 and could spit out binaries for ANY operating system FROM ANY operating system if you got the runtime libraries! FoxPro was a great product. But it turned Windows specific, and became stagnant.
Now, what is a proprietary programming language? I define it as any programming language that is specific ONLY to Windows. For example, Visual Basic, Visual J++/ActiveX, FoxPro, and MS SQL. Those of you saying 'well there goes everything down the drain' - wait.
I would propose that if Microsoft converts a proprietary programming language to a non-proprietary language, ie; FoxPro for Solaris, AIX, Linux, *and* Windows, or a STANDARDIZED non-proprietary language, ie; MS SQL, Visual C++, that they should be allowed to sell it!
But they must also be STRICTLY regulated. Microsoft is most certainly guilty of price fixing. They must be prevented from doing such ever again. Their prices must be regulated in a fair and just manner. Meaning that if they make, say, FoxPro for Windows $399, they can't make FoxPro for AIX $999. That's unreasonable. The costs of the software must be justified before their outrageous prices can be charged. ($1000 for NT4 Server in some situations?! That's gotta stop.)
Those of you whining that stopping MS from doing "full featured" web browsers will kill them in today's Internet, hush now. It won't. A full featured web browser is one that integrates email, all kinds of other goodies, and also does http. Were Microsoft to make IE uninstallable, and remove Outlook Express, MS Wallet, and most of the other addons, then IE wouldn't be a full featured web browser. Netscape Communicator is a full featured web browser. Mozilla is. They provide everything in one package, tied tightly together. Untie those addons, and it's no longer full featured by my definition. This leaves Microsoft able to continue their development on IE and it's features with Windows whathaveyou.
Productivity software.. that's one of MS' biggest markets. Why ban them from there? Because they abuse their market share. Look at Office 2000's cost. MS Word for DOS used to be less than $50. Now they can justify over $1000 for a productivity suite, while I can get StarOffice (bloated bugware it is) for $50, and I can get Corel's suite for about $200? I'm sorry, no. Not to mention the fact that it ties in with the OS on top of it. Those of you who whine that that's unfair, no - it's not. Charging you $1000 for an annoying paperclip is unfair.
Just my $0.02 and opinions. Gotta run to get in on the VA Linux IPO now - they sent a second or third round of letters December *FIRST*. If you haven't checked your email, DO SO. Reminder to all you VA Linux IPO people, YOUR PAPERWORK (confidential indication of interest and limited use account application) MUST BE IN TODAY!
Wow. First post. Not that it matters to me. Maybe I'll be moderated period for once.;P
Seriously, this doesn't surprise me. It wouldn't surprise me if I was under investigation for being a privacy advocate, critical of government policies against citizens, and a PGP user. I am for IPSec, I *use* a form of IPSec. I don't believe in the right of the gov't to blatantly ignore the constitution in the 'interests of national security.'
National security. You sure hear that term a lot, don't you? Now, I have to think. What do they really mean by national? Obviously not national, as national would mean not only the gov't, but every citizen and legal resident of the United States of America. Nothing is done in the interest of National security; it's done in the interests of government security. The government maintains it's power by asserting it's power over it's people. Sometimes fairly and justly - hate crimes, Roe vs. Wade, hate crime legislation. Other times, unjustly and basically illegally - anti-crypto, censorship, harassment. There is no doubt in anyone's mind that the FBI has repeatedly abused it's power. The same for the NSA. They both have multi-billion dollar 'black' budgets - budgets that do not have to be accounted for. They can spend the money from that budgeanything without having to account for a single penny , or state what it is spent on.
Don't think the government will stop there, though. It wouldn't surpriese me if this advocate became the next Kevin Mitnick. The next step, logically, is for the FBI to file secret evidence and lock him up in a federal prison, and deny him access to computers for the rest of his life. And don't doubt that the FBI will at the least try to. Why wouldn't they? It's his strongest voice. That's what he's scaring them with now.
Fight oppression. Fight back. Promote your own privacy. National security should mean NATIONAL security - not government security. Use PGP. Don't keep passwords written down. Refuse illegal search and seizure. Complain to the appropriate authorities about harassment. You have rights in this country, unless you're too damn scared to fight for them. I don't know about any of you, but I plan to fight for my rights if I have to, and I'll let no person, company, or government take away the rights that the Gods gave me at birth and that the United States Constitution garauntees me in writing and law.
I'll be blunt. Yes, that's me. 100%. I was bullied, I had a very small circle of friends who shared similar interests. I am a proud practicioner of an occult religion and rather proud to state that I am familiar with religions ranging from Catholic Christianity to semi-modern Druidic beliefs. My parents and I frequently fought, and still do. My self-esteem is sometimes unstable, yes. I'm of above average intelligence (Mensa, anyone?). I didn't graduate from High School - I couldn't have because of a lack of credits. The only thing I don't match is the total refusal of criticism.
Yes, I contemplated killing people. Who hasn't? But I didn't. Why not? Because I knew that that would only bring me to their level, and I was above that.
The problem is not finding these students. That's just a pathetic excuse to violate our privacy and eliminate trust. What needs to be done is to stop the students that would CREATE these people. We're going to live in a neverending cycle of difficulties and problems so long as bullying and harassment is ENCOURAGED by school officials (don't try and tell me it's not - it very much is. All teasing and bullying is always the victim's fault.) and those students are not only permitted, but urged to continue their absolutely deplorable behaviour.
The people in charge need to shut the hell up for once, and listen to the victims, instead of creating new ones. I don't know about any of you, but if I ever have children, I will be damn good and sure to ensure that they do not have to deal with 'Mosaic2000' in any way shape or form. That's a blatant, outright violation of human rights, privacy, and a perversion of so-called preventative law enforcement.
I'm seriously considering organizing a protest against Mosaic 2000. If you'd like to help out, please, drop me an email at prj@adelphia.net.
#1 ENIAC. I'm sorry, but you'll find absolutely NO larger hack! (And I'm not talking just size here, either.)
#2 Linux Take one part Minix, one part frustation, add hundreds of thousands of lines of code from all over the place, cobbled together, and you get Linux. Definitely a hack if there ever was.
#3 NetBSD/OpenBSD/FreeBSD Not to discount the BSDs in comparison to Linux, but they're not as big a hack. They all follow a fixed set of standards, but they've got bits and pieces of code from everywhere!
#4 Sun Microsystems Yes, I'm nominating a company. Take a few gurus, some people with money, build a machine, capitalize on it's popularity, remove all gurus, and still remain popular through marketing. The ultimate business hack.
#5 Windows 98 Bite me, folks. It's a hack plain and simple. Start with MS-DOS. Put Windows 3.0 on top. Then add Windows 3.1 code. Then add Windows 3.11 code. Then add Windows 95 code, and a few million more lines of code, and you have Windows 98!
#6 The Internet Vint Cerf doesn't remember the first time they made two computers talk to eachother. It was cobbled together. To this day, it's cobbled together and held together by bailing wire and duct tape. Let's hear it for the world's biggest hack!
#7 godhatesfags.com The man is the ultimate literary and legal hack. He's been banned from practicing law multiple times. Hacks don't necessarily HAVE to involve computers; computers just help to expose them.;)
#8 slashdot.org C'mon, Rob. Don't bother denying it. slashdot is a cobbled together pile of code teetering on the edge of either brilliance or total system meltdown. Embrace it! Be proud of it!:)
#9 Mandrake Linux Cheap Hacks'R'Us. Take existing distribution. "Extend" existing distribution. Put in other stuff. Relabel with new flashy logo and name. Sell for same price as competitor. Speaks for itself.
#10 WinModems We can emulate old PCs on our dual pII-450's, why not emulate hardware, like UARTs and DSPs? Now *THAT* is a hack if I ever did see one!
The opinions above are mine and mine and only mine and thievery of opinions or frags will be met with fierce resistance. Thank you drive through, offer not applicable in all areas, while supplies last, no purchase necessary, call 1-800-NOT-REAL or send SASE to NO SUCH CONTEST, RT 666 BOX 1, COUDERSPORT, PA, 16915, sorry we're all out of Pokemon.
Bear in mind, AM signal strength is directly relative to several key things; distance from transmitter, power of transmitter, and frequency.
I'm guessing (I am TOO tired to read the article and make total sense of it right now) that they have already isolated which frequencies effect ADSL. That leaves it to a simple matter of determining a way to filter out the noise from those frequencies at each end. That, unfortunately, is not easy.
However, this surprises me not at all. Cable modems have similar problems. Like Digital Cable. I'm sorry, but two *VERY* busy digital signals over a single coaxial line just will NOT work. Granted, the cablemodem should be operating around 6MHz and your audio/video signals are around 40MHz IIRC, you still run into the problem that those are *baselines*. They go a certain amount either way, with another bit thrown in for tolerance. And end up crowding eachother out. Then at the cable plant, you have things like RF interference from your wireless reception/transmission equipment, and such crap. Things like ingress and dB loss. That's why there's the Cisco uBR7246 (Universal Broadband Router). It's designed with all that stuff in mind, at the cable plant. Once you leave there, you're on your own.
There's really not much that can be done but to compensate. The chances of the FCC ruling ADSL more important than AM radio, which is older than ENIAC by probably a quarter century or more, are very slim. So it's going to be up to the designers and implementers to compensate.
...take it from someone who's discussed it with the guy who actually started it. Linux/390 isn't very special, really. When I last spoke with him (I'm sorry, I've forgotten his name.. I forget names easily.:P) it just ran on the bare hardware, and didn't support much at all. If anything.
Now, some info on the S/390 from someone who's not gotten to play with one, really, but has seen one.
The S/390 is a 'massively parallel' computer. Meaning that everything is parallel. The S/390 is capable of running just about any OS you throw at it, from Linux on an x86 host controller to Windows NT on that same host controller. You can run AIX on an RS/6000 host controller. Or OS/400 on the AS/400 host controller. It's designed to do massive processing while serving up literally thousands of hosts. Usually 'dumb' terminals over twinax (twin-prong coaxial), triax (three-prong coaxial), or RS232/RS242.
No, it's not meant to run Linux instead of OS/390. I wouldn't dare to say that it should, because in truth, it shouldn't. The S/390 is not a 'convenience' machine or a 'play' machine. It is a mainframe, and it needs a mainframe OS.
However, I see absolutely no reason why Linux shouldn't run on the S/390. Bear in mind; running on the S/390 does not mean replacing OS/390. It means SUPPLEMENTING OS/390. Say you have an S/390 handling most of your financial transactions, but accounting wants a website to keep track of it. Running Linux on an x86 host controller on an S/390 is the perfect solution. But say accounting wants to cut some major expenditures out of the budget; eliminating OS/390 isn't a good idea. Plain and simple.
OS/390 is a *VERY* mature OS, pretty much dating back to OS/360 (the similarities between OS/390 and OS/370 are very obvious) and as a direct result, is rock solid stable, extremely secure, and inherently reliable. Add that in to hardware that is designed to have decades of uptime. Add in the power to get the job done and then some. That's what the S/390 is about. It's a big-bucks big-iron machine meant to be your network-edge solution for ERP and transactions and whatever else you want to throw at it. It's not your webserver, it's not your fileserver. It's a mainframe.
However, I've noticed quite a few people are moving away from S/390 to the actually more powerful RS/6000's, which lack some of the features of the S/390. Okay, MOST of the features people look for in the S/390. Some RS/6000 models border on the commodity machine definition. Linux doesn't belong there, either. Yes, that's right, you're hearing it from someone who spends about 99% of his spare time working on porting Linux more thoroughly to the RS/6000. Linux doesn't replace AIX. Period. AIX is a mature OS, probably 7 or 8 years Linux's elder. AIX has a very stable and regular release and development cycle, and is built on principles that have been proven a million times over. It's inherently reliable, stable, and very fast. Unlike Linux, AIX does not just have 'general' releases for all RS/6000's with all architecture support. There is AIX for the RS/6000 F40 (Dual PowerPC 604e) and there is AIX for the RS/6000 Power260 (single POWER3). You can't mix and match those two or components from them. AIX is optimized at the hardware level extensively. Unlike my work, it's built on native platform, optimized on that platform, and meant for that platform.
Yes, every piece of AIX has a common code base. The compilers do the work. That's why it's built on the native platform. You can get AIX C/C++ compilers for PowerPC 604e, POWER2, POWER3, and so on. And they're designed to optimize and compile reliably. ANd they do it well. Better than gcc or egcs could ever hope to.
Linux/390 is a great project. Like I said; there's no reason whatsoever that Linux should NOT be able to run on the S/390. There's no reason Linux should not be able to run on ANY system. The question is, though, do you want to replace what that system is MEANT to run with Linux?
Not yet. Linux is still a long way off from being ready to do that. But maybe someday it will be ready.
Next time, get some balls and tell the truth. You've spouted nothing but egocentric bullshit aimed at defaming other sites who expose you for the fraud you are. This 'response' was nothing more than a personal attack against others aimed at increasing your popularity or at least exposure. It is patently libelous and slanderous, making the same false claims you always do.
Get the clue and crawl back in the little hole you came from. You are an absolute disgrace to the security community as a whole, and a scar on the face of this earth.
It's really very simple. They have the source. In China, you can't use a computer without the state approved OS, and someone watching over your shoulder to make sure you don't view anything illegal.
Next step, official browser of Mozilla. If the PRC has the source, they can control every aspect of the software, including what people can do, and have it report to the police if they do something illegal. Anyone caught reading up on the Falun Gong from an unapproved source (ie; anyone who puts the PRC in a bad spot) they'll be arrested, more than likely.
Communism really isn't a bad thing, no. However, China's idea of Communism is not true to the Marxist ideals of communism really, and China is basically little more than a police state. They have no reguard for human rights, what makes you think they're going to use an OS they can't control every aspect of as well?
You know what's desperately needed? An injuction that freezes Microsoft's acquisition fund.
You see, Microsoft just bought a whole bunch of cable companies around DC. Yes, that's right, Microsoft. NOT Charter Communications, but Microsoft proper. And they've been shoving WebTV and cable modems and their new long distance service down everyone's throats.
I don't know about you, but it'll be a cold day in hell before I use M$ long distance. Qwest's leased-line service is absolutely horrific at best currently, and they're supposedly one of the best. BAH. The DOJ needs to clue in and stop Microsoft NOW before they taint everyone. If this is a jury trial (IANAL), Microsoft has just eliminated every possible juror in one fell swoop.
TRUSTe is about as trustworthy as any corporate-owned scumbag lawyer.
TRUSTe does not act in ways that would benefit consumers because that would cost it it's funding. TRUSTe knows this. The EFF knows this. TRUSTe is a dismal failure. Self-regulation in a corporate-driven world is impossible, period. Why?
Because why the hell would you want to give up your biggest source of additional revenue? In today's world, information has a value - especially customer information. If they can send you junkmail till the cows come home that might land them a few extra dollars in business, then you better believe they'll do it. Conversely, they don't want to waste a couple thousand dollars mailing people who don't care either way about their products and will probably just throw it out.
Privacy on the internet? Bah - once you sign up with an untrustworthy ISP, you're already screwed. My ISP back home has very strict policies reguarding privacy. Namely - you get it. They have never sold customer information, they keep minimal customer information, they track no browsing, and send all spammers requesting email lists straight to hell.
A hype-driven company with a couple billion in market cap and no real revenue can't do that. They need money. So they sell out their first customers. So it's just a few at first. But then more and more sign up, and they're getting more and more for customer information. Hey, look, a nice secondary source of revenue. Screw the customer's privacy - we need the operating costs covered.
So, so what if you haven't given a company your personal infromation? You can still be tracked. Cookies. Static IPs. Intel's PSN which really cannot be turned off (independent tests have revealed that the pIII Personal Serial Number can *NOT* be turned off, either by Intel's software or 3rd party software. I recommend NOT buying a pIII.) and is easily obtained and tracked over the web. Gee, Intel's empowering the Internet to watch you and make money off your time. Where's my cut? Oh, wait, I don't get a cut! I'm supposed to just let these people make as much as *$3* *PER* *CUSTOMER* *RECORD* because they're providing me with some service of some sort. Uh. Right.
Of course this is different for every company, yadda yadda, YMMV. But that's how it is, and that's how it's going to stay. The government is driven by interest groups, who's interests lie in making money any way they can generally. It's not in their best interests to protect our privacy. The government doesn't want to protect our privacy - just look at Mosaic[1] - because they don't want "dangerous" people running around. Right. So the government can determine that I'm dangerous because I listen to a lot of industrial and techno.
Privacy was a thing of the past, maybe. Either way, it's a pipe dream. Echelon is real - Iran Contra, Nixon, Jimmy Hoffa, Waco, CIA, NSA, FBI, DOJ! - and privacy simply isn't. And we'll never see real privacy. Why? Because nobody except the end-users want it, and since when have end-users actually gotten what they wanted?
I say we just give up the regulation fight, and start getting hostile. Screw the sites that collect information and resell it. Screw the companies that do the same. Get the laws on our side - violation of privacy is illegal afterall - and take out these scumbags the hard way. That's the only way anything'll ever get done. But rest assured the government will intervene and say that it's perfectly legal, or rush through some legislation that makes it legal... *sigh* nice world we live in, huh? Maybe I should just go back to bed.
[1] Am I the only person on Earth who realizes that Mosaic is a trademark, originally owned by Spry - who was purchased by Compuserve - who was purchased by AOL, and is more than likely still valid? (The trademark was filed in the late 80's or early 90's more than likely, and definitely has been enforced since it's filing.) Of course, this is going off my memory, it's only 10:30, and I didn't get much sleep last night. But my memory generally serves correctly. Somebody wanna pester AOL so we can shaft these 'find the troubled kids' punks?
Didn't think I'd ever see something so patently false and just outright wrong on slashdot, but I guess I've been proven wrong. I think the Anti-Microsoft sentiment's gotten a bit overstrong.
FYI - no. You don't need a license to connect to an M$ webserver (yet). However, if you are using ANY Microsoft service on Windows 2000 in a LAN/WAN environment from a Windows machine, you MUST have a Windows 2000 CAL (Client Access License) for each and every machine that will connect to it.
Microsoft *does* have a valid and clear definition of it's services. These include Windows Filesharing, trusted connections (ie; PDC/BDC-style), application services (ie; common network install of Office2000 (which are part of filesharing)), and any 'networked' MS application, ie; MS SQL. This does NOT include Internet connections to IIS in any form.
Yes, that does mean that Samba is now illegal according to Microsoft licensing. But that's it. You don't need a CAL for every person who connects to your website. Just the 95/98/NT/2k users in your domain.
However, this presents a pretty stealthy move by Microsoft. Basically, this licensing scheme says that you need to have a Windows 2000 license for a Samba box. I don't want Win2k - that's why I have a Samba box. But if I want to connect to a Win2k box with my Samba box, I need a license. Bah. Stealthy little bastards, those legal folks at Microsoft. Ah well - they can take me to court for it for all I care; not like I'm going to be using Win2k as a server *ever*.
Of course, standard disclaimer applies, including IANAL. Doesn't change my views, and nothing will. So nyah.
I've got what's probably a fairly odd question here;
how does the royal family handle connectivity? Granted, they have a leased line for those webservers, to an upstream provider. But is it multi-homed? Is it redundant? Are they using Linux as a routing table broadcaster?
You know, I have to wonder, when will you people realize that it's a pipedream?
If this system is to be ready by 2001, and is to be faster than ASCI Red (9,282 Intel Pentium Pro 200MHz with 1024k cache each, using proprietary interconnects (IP over SCSI, IIRC)) then it's not going to happen.
Even if the gov't is willing to sacrifice the reliability of the system, Linux is not ready and will not be for many years. Period. You're talking of going from 2 processors, which only works on x86 and Alpha currently, to over a thousand.
Sorry, folks, it isn't going to happen. It's a matter of rapid development, and availability. Sure, SGI could probably do it, but not by due date. Nor would it perform as necessary due to the requirement of extensive assembly-level optimization in both compilers and kernels.
ASCI Blue Pacific, IBM's entry, is one of the most powerful computers in the world. And what I'm about to say will probably send most of you into denial and/or shock.
Blue Pacific isn't customized all that much. In fact, barely customized. It's nearly the same machine you can order for your business today. Perhaps even slightly slower.
That's right - ASCI Blue Pacific CTR SP Silver and ASCI Blue Pacific, #11 and #2 respectively on the Top 500 list, are retail systems with some additional software. IBM's SP Silver in Poughkeepsie is a retail SP.
Shocking, isn't it? That someone can build a supercomputer that any business can buy. IBM holds a *lot* of the first 50. You don't see Sun till 54 with a machine that was totally custom built. Hell, look at #20! IBM SP Power3 200MHz. *200MHz!* And it smokes 480 supercomputers! That should tell you something right there. Now, SGI's talking about, more than likely, an x86 supercomputer or IA64 supercomputer, that's supposed to run Linux, have more than a thousand processors, and outperform ASCI Red? Nope, 'fraid not, folks. Maybe in 5 or 6 years, but not one and a half. Sorry. Deal with it.
You know, a lot of people - especially slashdotters, like to flame me when I make a prediction, like Corel's gonna make a big screwup, or NetSol's gonna do something, or what have you.
Once again, I've been proven right though. Can't contest it. I said a few months back when this was originally announced that Corel's gonna have licensing issues, especially with Debian. Corel doesn't understand the DFSG (Debian Free Software Guidelines) and doesn't care so much about them.
This immediately puts Corel into conflict with a good many packages in Debian, pretty much. Told you so. *smirk*
What bothers me, however, is that while I'm not some GPL hardliner, or DFSG hardliner even - the author is compromising his license.
There's one license I won't tolerate - and that's a compromised one. The author owns the software, and how he chooses to license it is his decision. No author should be forced to bow to anyone because they cannot create a derivitive work with a compatible license. This is Corel's problem, and they should be working to rectify it properly - by writing software that can be licensed compatibly, not by basically forcing the author into compromising his license.
Look at it this way; should I put a new stereo in my car, just because big corporation XYZ says so? That's how I'm looking at this - you may view it differently, but IMNSHO, that's not how it is. Here, a maintainer is basically being told to compromise on his license because a corporation says so. I don't believe for a second that this is right. Even for the good of the distribution as a whole, it simply is not right.
If Corel's going to consider DFSG a hinderance that the maintainers and authors have to work around, then I think that Corel had best get off it's butt, find a new distribution that doesn't care about author's rights and the DFSG, and start from scratch. This is nothing short of bullying, almost Microsoft-style, to make sure they get their way so they can turn a profit.
Yes, it's going to increase Debian's user base - assuming Corel isn't found guilty in the Canadian's SEC-thing investigation - but it's now doing it at the cost of author's rights and freedoms. They've already had one licensing blunder - this makes two - how many more will there be? Eleven? Thirty? Fifty? For all we know, the entire distribution could end up being totally incompatible with the GPL or DFSG. Maybe Corel will change their license, or maybe they won't. Time will tell on that.
But at this point, it's my belief that the entirety of Corel's base - which is Debian - has now been compromised, as well as Debian as a distribution alone. Sure, Corel can throw in fancy things like WordPerfect 2000 and Corel DRAW! and other neat applications that would fall under 'non-free' at best. But they're doing it at an incredible cost. I really have a hard time accepting the compromise of a license as 'reasonable' in any situation whatsoever. If the author wants to license their software in a specific way, then that is their right to do so. They licensed it how they wanted it, they can change the license, but never should they be forced to change the license.
We already know Qt/Qtlib/KDE is non-DFSG compliant. Corel said 'we don't care.' Corel blatantly ignored the restrictions of the GPL and other licenses when they released the beta. Now they're basically forcing authors to change their licenses so they can attempt to save their finances.
Maybe Corel should have just gotten RedHat. At this rate, their ethics and intelligence are about the same level. Maybe even as bad as Microsoft, who frequently bullies programmers who use their products. It's trendy to hate Microsoft, though, so I'm sure this will get moderated down as 'flamebait' or 'troll' by the people who have never actually authored anything.
Ah well. Some days, it's just not worth getting out of bed, I guess. Much less out of bed to program. Maybe I should put a clause in my programs that says they can't be used by Corel for profit. See how they handle that one. *sigh* Yet another day of SNAFU. Situation Normal, All Fucked Up. Maybe someday we'll see some honest and decent corporations, but I guess it's going to have to wait for now - the almighty dollar calls again.
This isn't about conformance, it isn't about violating rights.
This is about broad and typically incorrect assumptions based on profiling and other frequently debatable psychological "learnings."
To put it bluntly, I wouldn't have tolerated that kind of crap when I was in school. How *dare* some unnamed person not only decieve me, but attempt to label me and place me in a group based on a standardized test that's results are based on broad assumption? How dare they?!
To put it into perspective; I'd be labeled as a violent person. Immediately. Red flags everywhere. But that's because of my personal beliefs, principles, and concepts. Truthfully, I'm a rather peacable person. I think I've actually hit someone once or maybe twice.
Yeah, my thoughts are violent. Comes from a society that not only glorifies, but exemplifies violence as a way to solve problems, to insure peace. While they condemn it. Can we say 'double-standard' boys and girls? I wasn't shocked about Columbine, really. I'd wanted to do something similar many times. Difference is, I didn't act on it.
I have something called self control. Yeah, I'm a violent person if you look at some bullshit psychological profile, I suppose. Doesn't mean I act on my thoughts. I think the most violent thing I've ever done has been to tear up my bedroom. Didn't break anything - just made it into a huge mess.
What bothers me even more is how they will implement this crap. It'll be mandatory. Parents won't be given the option to not do it. Nor will the children. You do it or you get the boot. And if you're labeled as 'violent' you'll be labeled for life. You'll have a police record before you even commit a crime.
Prevention through extremest and intrusive vigilence is just wrong. Just like fighting a war to end a war is wrong. Just because you win a war doesn't mean you can force people to stop hating eachother. What gives anyone the right to force someone to answer a bunch of idiotic questions that could quite possibly ruin the rest of their life?
Somebody point me to a campaign to stop this shit. I'm sick of this 'protect the children' excuse crap. What happened to 'securing life, liberty, and justice for all'? Oh, that's right, the DOJ burned the last copy of that filtered document years ago. My bad. We now return you to your normal police state. (Gee, I wonder how long before somebody comes knocking on my door looking to arrest me for speaking my mind..)
I just moved to PA. Coudersport, PA, to be exact. It may be BFE, but if it wasn't for Hell Atlantic, Coudersport would have more DS3s per square mile than Cleveland and Buffalo combined. (Maybe it being the home of Adelphia Communications Corporate has something to do with that?:)
Anyways, Pennsylvania's done something much *much* better than MA. We got new license plates this year. They're blue white and yellow, very tasteful IMO. And at the bottom (in PA, you don't have a county sticker/stamp) is a good one liner.
www.state.pa.us
HA! Touche, MA. God I love living in a state that has a sense of decency and taste.:)
I looked at it from a purely academic standpoint. Very strong solid arguments, that added a lot to the paper.
I looked at it from a personal standpoint, and saw the same thing.
I looked at it from ESR's standpoint and saw a challenge to my 'undeniable knowledge' about open source, and my media supremacy as ESR.
To put it bluntly, ESR is very egotistical and overly optimistic, assuming that if he says it, it will not only happen, but become law. This simply isn't true. I have analyzed much of what ESR has said throughout his 'reign' and have found most of it to be obviously written by an egotistical, overly boastful, angry zealot. Maybe ESR's just angry because RMS has held the spotlight for so long, and he wants a piece of the pie. Maybe it's because somebody wrote a critique that he views as a personal insult.
Either way, this is equivalent to a child's comeback. I say "you suck," ESR says "yeah, well you suck more!" We know for certain that at least one side is mature enough, hopefully, to simply say "whatever" and walk away before it becomes some ugly debacle.
ESR and Bruce Perens didn't get along with eachother for a reason. I'll save them both the embarassment of bringing those details back out into the light again, and leave it at that ESR is totally uncompromising unless it's going to further him personally, from what I have seen and heard.
People can flame me all they want, but the fact of the matter stands that ESR would probably slap the 'Open Source Certified' sticker on any product who's maker paid him off personally, under the table. He's the equivalent of a televangelist in my eyes; "can I get a hallelujiah!?" 'HALLELUJIAH!' "Can I get your credit card number?!" '4129...'
ESR makes strong points, but only politically. I've yet to see a 100% objective and reasonable writing from ESR. He has a habit of dodging the tough questions, of dodging things that could get him in trouble, of running away when he's scared of something small. In all the years I've known the brash, opinionated, certainly egotistical, and sometimes downright insane RMS, he has maintained a fair level of professionalism. ESR's level of professionalism varies wildly from paper to paper, word to word. At times he reminds me of a coworker at a former job who was recently fired for gross unprofessionalism. When it suited him, he'd be the penultimate professional idiot; always had an answer, and always said sir. But when it didn't, he'd curse up a storm, get personal, and get impolite and downright unpleasant.
I never chose ESR to represent me, or my views, or the Linux community. Who did? I don't recall anyone of any real import beyond business people with 'open source' software actually endorsing him, but I honestly haven't paid any attention. The fact of the matter remains; I'd rather ESR didn't attempt to mis-represent any community I consider myself a part of, but he's going to keep right on doing it, so long as people hail him as their saviour.
Don't get me wrong; I'd rather not have RMS representing me professionally either. RMS is a hardliner who actually gives a damn about his morals and won't compromise his views, except to extremes. (I'm sorry, but if I *ever* have to listen to 'Join us now and share the software' again I'm gonig to have to rip off RMS' lips.;)
ESR's behaviour, conduct, and words have turned the term 'open source' from a very meaningful term into a pair of words that just means you let people see the undocumented features and ESR slaps his personal seal of approval on it.
Means nothing to me. Honestly, I'm fairly indifferent about GPL vs LGPL vs 'Open Source' vs Commercial. I concern myself only with whether or not it gets the job done first, then I consider the possibilities later. As anyone in any IT field with half a clue would. Functionality should always come before whether or not it's "free" software by anyone's definition.
In closing, all I can say is that I'm wholly and totally displeased with the conduct and quality of work ESR has done. All he has done has create meaningless terms, poor relationships, and damaged the credibility of an entire community at times, in my opinion. Maybe he should take a hint, and start acting a great deal more professionally and less 'geeky.'
/* This is my opinion, these are my words. I'd say 'em again in a heartbeat. And quite frankly, I don't give a damn if it ticks you off. It's an opinion, and they're like assholes - everyone's got one. So deal. */ -RISCy Business | Rabid unix guy, networking guru
January 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 2000 - Rioting in isolated locations and major cities due to excessively large parties, people sick of Prince's "1999," drunk partygoers, and isolated power outages. - Many computers die. Tech support lines and phone switches are pushed to capacity and beyond as frantic customers call their computer manufacturers demanding assistance.
January 4th, 2000 - All power is restored in all areas, riots are calmed, things are back to normal except for busy clean up crews. - Phone switches still straining to handle load from customers who didn't get through in the first three days.
January 23rd, 2000 - Phones work well again, all customers blown off, or helped. BBB flooded with complaints about companies that blew off out of warranty customers.
Sometime in 2001 - Space station suffers setbacks. Gets put off further.
Sometime in 2005 - First totally software-driven AI passes turing test with flying colors.
Sometime in 2009 - First totally hardware-driven AI passes turing test with flying colors; research and construction of experimental androids begins at colleges and universities around the world.
Sometime in 2010 - Scientists announce first successful human clone. UN immediately bans commercial cloning and regulates cloning for research excessively. - Space station delayed even further. - Third world countries getting restless because they're not getting a piece of the technology pie.
Sometime in 2011 - The great Internet Collapse will occur; the end-user/client-side/CPE equipment's bandwidth capabilities far outweighing those of many routers and backbones, the Internet is overloaded to the point of a colossal cascading failure, taking many backbones down for several days. Service is restored, with some difficulty, but things are much slower and much less reliable. IPv6 is determined to be insuffecient, and IPv7 work begins by the IETF.
Sometime in 2015 - Int'l Space Station *finally* finished, several trillion dollars over budget. - "Great Quake" of the San Andreas fault occurs, measuring =>7.0 on the richter scale. Many buildings, including 'earthquake proof' buildings fail structurally. Thousands are killed in the falling rubble and trapped inside the buildings. Highways are destroyed, and many parts of California are isolated by the damage. Building codes are made stricter to keep public opinion of officials from dropping. - Many earthquakes shake the 'ring of fire' in the pacific, killing thousands and causing hundreds of billions of dollars in damages. Computer industry, still reliant on Taiwan, is hit hard. Prices skyrocket.
Sometime in 2016 - Third world countries have had it, minor wars and skirmishes break out. The UN tries to abolish envy.
Sometime in 2020 - William H. Gates III passes away, leaves vast majority of wealth to charities. Children sue for being 'cheated' out of the wealth.
Sometime in 2025 - Intelligent androids are perfected and enter active use, working dangerous jobs only at first, far outperforming their previous human workers.
Sometime in 2026 - Laws are passed giving intelligent androids rights of their own, including the right to safer working conditions as safety has deteriorated due to the 'disposable' nature of androids.
Sometime in 2040 - No home on earth is without a computer; the Internet is the only means of communication, traditional phone switches having been replaced by real-time computers handling SS8 switching protocols. The US now has over 800 unique area codes. The phone companies warn congress that they will have to expand area codes to 4 digits within 2 years.
Sometime in 2041 - Yet another US stock market crash. But surprisingly, it changes little, only serving to reduce android use due to their still excessive cost, causing the economy to rebound before the end of the year.
Sometime in 2050 - US declares itself in charge of the world, proxy-ruling with the UN. World War III breaks out, hundreds of computers set to trying to figure out how to win the war with as little bloodshed as possible. Interestingly, cracking of enemy computers is not tried.
Sometime in 2052 - Nuclear weapons are brought out of storage, manufacture quickly escalates, all parties assuming that a buildup a la the Cold War will deter everyone from attacking them.
Sometime in 2057 - An accident at a nuclear weapons manufacturing plant and storage facility somewhere in the world sets off a chain reaction, destroying 20 nuclear warheads, killing hundreds immediately, and causing a massive fallout cloud that kills hundreds of others. - The facility claims sabotage by another country. Tensions heat up incredibly rapidly, and all negotiations and treaties begin to break down.
Sometime in 2058 - A trigger-happy world suffers another nuclear accident, a much smaller one that only destroys and irradiates a single small town. US issues a ban on all nuclear warheads via UN, but it is ignored by other countries, which have withdrawn their UN delegates.
Sometime in 2059 - Tensions are too high for safety; every home has a bomb shelter, and there are massive community bombshelters. Air raid sirens are posted on every street corner. Attempting to crack the enemy's systems cannot be tried, as the Internet has been dismantled, turning into massive WANs within allied countries.
Sometime in 2060 - A country somewhere in the world testfires a new fusion weapon that has power equivalent to 1,000,000 of the most powerful Hydrogen bombs. The UN issues a declaration banning further research and development on said weapon, for the safety of the world, and that all prototypes and research must be destroyed. The declaration is ignored.
Sometime in 2061 - The end of the world. The fusion weapon developed in 2060 is fired on a country. A hunter-killer missile is unable to stop it, and the entire country is wiped out. Nuclear and fusion weapons suddenly fire around the world, hitting their targets, and setting into motion a chain reaction that destroys nearly half the continents and cuases extreme devastation to anything not destroyed. Only a few people are left living, but the world is unlivable due to the nuclear winter.
Around 2090 - Human race dies. World still too radioactive for living. Cockroaches still rule the world, but they aren't the giant mutated beasts as advertized in movies.
About 4 billion years later. - Evolution produces another sentient and intelligent race. Race progresses very much like humanity did.
About 6 billion years after that. - Sun burns out. Everything dies. Game over, man. Game over.
Take these predictions with a grain of salt, maybe. Who knows, I could be true! All I know is I sure as hell won't live to see most of 'em.:) -RISCy Business | Rabid unix guy, networking guru
...is an Ultra5 worth it. I'm writing this on an Ultra5. Probably one of the $2,000 ones. It's got a 4.3G IDE disk and a 12x IDE CD-ROM. It has a 10/100 'Happy Meal' ethernet card. Onboard sound that is horrendous. No SCSI capabilities without a very specific SCSI card. One serial port that requires a special splitter cable.
With 256M of memory, this Ultra5 is actually *slower* than my IBM ThinkPad 860 running AIX with a 603/166MHz and 64M in it. That's right; it's actually slower. It's running a cheapo Raptor 4M 'framebuffer' which is actually a Permedia2a, specifically, a FireGL 1000 Pro OEM'd twice; once by Diamond, once by this other company.
I can honestly say I have a framerate using Netscape. I have a framerate when I'm typing because the keyboard controller is having difficulties keeping up with my typing (I type at ~110WPM w/78% accuracy) and the movements of my mouse. And this is with 256M, which probably puts it up to the $5,000 mark if you want your memory from Sun.
Honestly, I can't say I've been on a much worse machine. Even my PCs are better than this; at least they have the ability to use a variety of SCSI cards and sound cards; here, you're stuck with one choice and no options. The CD-ROM is problematic, as is the OS. Half the time it refuses to take an audio CD, much less play it.
Don't waste your money. I can honestly say that the DEC Multia is on par with the Ultra5 as far as a development machine; and I own 3 DEC Multias. They have the same problems - no room for disk, proprietary floppy, etc. The difference is that the Multia comes with video onboard, and has IDE and SCSI in it, as well as a decent sound card, NIC, PCMCIA, and you can add expansion capabilities. The Ultra5.. well.. I think I need another Motorola MTX+ '011 before I so much as want an Ultra5. If you must have SPARC, go get a SPARCengine UltraAXi from one of the many VAR/OEMs that Sun rips off royally. Same machine, only you can actually try and work with it.
You know, I'd almost support an anti-cracking program by the government except for one thing.
They're going to misinform those kids.
"Okay, Johnny. Now what's wrong with hacking?" "It hurts other people's work and it's illegal." "Very good. Now what is hacking?" "When you try to break into someone's computer or you try to take apart their program."
Anti-cracking my ass; we all know that the government will use it as not only that, but as a way to push other 'morals' on these poor kids. Morals like 'reverse engineering is wrong' and 'taking apart somebody else's work to make it work better is illegal.' Not to mention ruining the definition of hacker vs cracker.
We all know that the government is about as computer-saavy as, say, Martha Stewart. Like hell I'm going to trust them to 'educate' any kids I know about 'hacking'. My suggestion to parents is to simply call your kids in sick when they send the NSA/DOJ puppets around, because you're going to have to reeducate your kids right afterwards. And I'll bet dollars to doughnuts that they plan to run it like 'DARE' out here where you have to go through it in every grade, and in at least two grades, you're forcefed the crap for a full week and then tested on it.
*sigh* Sometimes the government gets so close, but falls so damn far. Where's the receipt for our current government? I wanna take it back and get one that works in exchange.
ALRIGHT YOU IGNORANT LITTLE FSCKING WEASELS. In case you haven't fucking noticed, *ALL* of Linux is a fucking media circus. Even DEBIAN now. THAT is what I am referring to when I say Pfah. RedHat. It's sad to see what Linux has become. GODS! Somebody fucking hand the world a clue before I have to shove it down the idiot's throats one at a fucking time. -RISCy Business | Rabid unix guy, networking guru
You know, this strikes me as real Microsoft-like behaviour on RedHat's part. Let's take a look here.
Win95 was released late in 95. Q1 96 gave us OSR2, which was just a bunch of bugfixes hidden behind 'added features.' RedHat released 6.0 early in 99, if memory serves correctly. And here it is, 2 quarters later, with a new version.
Welcome to how RedHat plans to make it's money, folks. Microsoft didn't really make any money on OSR2 because it was just Win95. But then came 98. And then 98SE, which was $90 if you had 98.
Welcome to RedHat 6.0. Here comes RedHat 6.1. Want a manual? That'll be another $80. RedHat isn't counting on downloaders for their profits; you're all probably off their radar and filed away in the trash bin. They don't want you; they want businesses that shell out the $80 for every new release. Nevermind the fact that the only updates are to GPL or such software, and the commercial stuff that comes along 'free' is still the same version. They need those manuals and those little updates. So out comes the check book.
RedHat's always rushed to release. Need I remind you RedHat supporters of 3.0.0, the biggest disaster of a distro *ever*? RedHat doesn't care about beta testing at this point - if it's broken, release a new version. They have 'credentials' and a solid brand now; the businesses will pay.
Really nice guys, those RedHat people, huh? If they can't ripoff the end users, they'll get the businesses instead. I think maybe I'll just switch back to an all-AIX environment. At least AIX doesn't come out with bugfixes daily then say 'oh, screw you. Here's a new version you have to buy.' They can sit on a version, release bugfixes, and integrate them into the next version, a year or two down the road.
Pfah. RedHat. It's sad to see what Linux has become.
HA! I was WONDERING why things were slow to my ISP today! Those OC192's are probably the ones that Columbia Gas has pipelines running alongside, on I80. (Ha! You thought I wouldn't name the gas company!) IIRC, ICG laid the first OC48, and MCI/MFS as well as Sprint laid more, and more, and more. They're doing a LOT of construction along I80 from what I hear, so it's NOT surprising that a cut occured. Those lines are on a gas-pipeline right-of-way, and there are 5ESS Demarcation points along I80 for 'em.
There've been previous fiber cuts that resulted in me passing a group of 15 MCI/WorldCom vans on my way home. I betcha if it's the link I suspect, they've got the onramp *packed* with all their techs trying to explain to the people staffing the tollbooths that they're with (insert-company) and they're in on an emergency call and they'll be getting right back off! *LAUGH!* Gotta love the Ohio Turnpickle, eh?:)
I can only applaud Adam Penenburg because words have failed me. For once someone has had the guts, in a big media publication, to tell the truth about "JP"; he's not what he claims, he's a poser, a fake, and an unreliable source. He is shunned by the real 'hacking'/'cracking' (whichever you prefer) communities. Attrition.org has documents which, at length, detail his many falsifications, lies, abuses, and other attacks. Proof of his paying people to fabricate his 'scoops.' Proof of his gross abuses of venture capital and other funding. I'm certain something he's doing is illegal, it's only a question of when somebody can afford a lawyer and the time to take him on in court before he is exposed for the fraud that he is.
I truly hope John reads this. I hope he threatens lawsuits and the whole deal. Because then he'll have given slashdot a scoop of their own, and just be exposing himself for the vindictive little child that he is.
Slashdot Mirror
This is really depressing.
Not because it's someone going broke - because it's true.
I personally have experienced similar. I have a *killer* business plan. A company that could turn first operating quarter profit without difficulty - minimum overhead, maximum ROI (return on investment). Brought it to three or four different VC's, and they all said 'we're not interested.'
This idea is really a *great* idea! It would be so simple to make it nearly forgery proof, it would make processing easier, everything about it is beneficial in some way! It's the perfect solution to hundreds of problems. But it would put people out of jobs possibly, and it's not a, as it was put, sexy project.
To put it bluntly, that's bullshit. So what if it's not sexy? It's profitable and good ROI and financial (EPS, etc) is FAR more important than marketing and such.
Maybe we should take up a fund to help Jim start this business. Jim, if you're reading this, please email me - I'd like to help any way I can.
We need to help the *real* innovators in the computer world, like Jim, instead of listening to these marketing people telling us what innovation is. Like I said, I've been down this road before, and I wish anyone going down it the best of luck. Take care, and have a merry (insert celebrated holiday here).
-RISCy Business
To put it bluntly, see the subject. It won't work. It can't work.
:)
Why?
Microsoft is too big, and too powerful. What will a breakup do to them? Well, there's two options.
One; the smaller companies will duke it out till one buys up the rest, and we're back to the Microsoft we all know and loathe.
Two; the smaller companies simply 'collaborate' on everything (and I do mean everything) resulting in the same problem we have now; everything being tied together inseperably.
A breakup is not the answer. The only answer that I can think of is market forbiddance. What do I mean? I mean Microsoft needs to be banned from certain markets. Productivity software, "full featured" web browsers, and proprietary programming languages.
What good will that do, beyond limiting Microsoft's ability to compete (as I'm sure everyone sees it) and taking away some very effective revenue? It'll force Microsoft to stop stagnating and actually INNOVATE again. Yes, there was a time Microsoft was being innovative. FoxPro was the first relational database application that not only could spit out binaries, but ran on multiple operating systems INCLUDING Xenix286 and could spit out binaries for ANY operating system FROM ANY operating system if you got the runtime libraries! FoxPro was a great product. But it turned Windows specific, and became stagnant.
Now, what is a proprietary programming language? I define it as any programming language that is specific ONLY to Windows. For example, Visual Basic, Visual J++/ActiveX, FoxPro, and MS SQL. Those of you saying 'well there goes everything down the drain' - wait.
I would propose that if Microsoft converts a proprietary programming language to a non-proprietary language, ie; FoxPro for Solaris, AIX, Linux, *and* Windows, or a STANDARDIZED non-proprietary language, ie; MS SQL, Visual C++, that they should be allowed to sell it!
But they must also be STRICTLY regulated. Microsoft is most certainly guilty of price fixing. They must be prevented from doing such ever again. Their prices must be regulated in a fair and just manner. Meaning that if they make, say, FoxPro for Windows $399, they can't make FoxPro for AIX $999. That's unreasonable. The costs of the software must be justified before their outrageous prices can be charged. ($1000 for NT4 Server in some situations?! That's gotta stop.)
Those of you whining that stopping MS from doing "full featured" web browsers will kill them in today's Internet, hush now. It won't. A full featured web browser is one that integrates email, all kinds of other goodies, and also does http. Were Microsoft to make IE uninstallable, and remove Outlook Express, MS Wallet, and most of the other addons, then IE wouldn't be a full featured web browser. Netscape Communicator is a full featured web browser. Mozilla is. They provide everything in one package, tied tightly together. Untie those addons, and it's no longer full featured by my definition. This leaves Microsoft able to continue their development on IE and it's features with Windows whathaveyou.
Productivity software.. that's one of MS' biggest markets. Why ban them from there? Because they abuse their market share. Look at Office 2000's cost. MS Word for DOS used to be less than $50. Now they can justify over $1000 for a productivity suite, while I can get StarOffice (bloated bugware it is) for $50, and I can get Corel's suite for about $200? I'm sorry, no. Not to mention the fact that it ties in with the OS on top of it. Those of you who whine that that's unfair, no - it's not. Charging you $1000 for an annoying paperclip is unfair.
Just my $0.02 and opinions. Gotta run to get in on the VA Linux IPO now - they sent a second or third round of letters December *FIRST*. If you haven't checked your email, DO SO. Reminder to all you VA Linux IPO people, YOUR PAPERWORK (confidential indication of interest and limited use account application) MUST BE IN TODAY!
Have a good one.
-RISCy Business
Wow. First post. Not that it matters to me. Maybe I'll be moderated period for once. ;P
Seriously, this doesn't surprise me. It wouldn't surprise me if I was under investigation for being a privacy advocate, critical of government policies against citizens, and a PGP user. I am for IPSec, I *use* a form of IPSec. I don't believe in the right of the gov't to blatantly ignore the constitution in the 'interests of national security.'
National security. You sure hear that term a lot, don't you? Now, I have to think. What do they really mean by national? Obviously not national, as national would mean not only the gov't, but every citizen and legal resident of the United States of America. Nothing is done in the interest of National security; it's done in the interests of government security. The government maintains it's power by asserting it's power over it's people. Sometimes fairly and justly - hate crimes, Roe vs. Wade, hate crime legislation. Other times, unjustly and basically illegally - anti-crypto, censorship, harassment. There is no doubt in anyone's mind that the FBI has repeatedly abused it's power. The same for the NSA. They both have multi-billion dollar 'black' budgets - budgets that do not have to be accounted for. They can spend the money from that budgeanything without having to account for a single penny , or state what it is spent on.
Don't think the government will stop there, though. It wouldn't surpriese me if this advocate became the next Kevin Mitnick. The next step, logically, is for the FBI to file secret evidence and lock him up in a federal prison, and deny him access to computers for the rest of his life. And don't doubt that the FBI will at the least try to. Why wouldn't they? It's his strongest voice. That's what he's scaring them with now.
Fight oppression. Fight back. Promote your own privacy. National security should mean NATIONAL security - not government security. Use PGP. Don't keep passwords written down. Refuse illegal search and seizure. Complain to the appropriate authorities about harassment. You have rights in this country, unless you're too damn scared to fight for them. I don't know about any of you, but I plan to fight for my rights if I have to, and I'll let no person, company, or government take away the rights that the Gods gave me at birth and that the United States Constitution garauntees me in writing and law.
--RISCy Business
I'll be blunt. Yes, that's me. 100%. I was bullied, I had a very small circle of friends who shared similar interests. I am a proud practicioner of an occult religion and rather proud to state that I am familiar with religions ranging from Catholic Christianity to semi-modern Druidic beliefs. My parents and I frequently fought, and still do. My self-esteem is sometimes unstable, yes. I'm of above average intelligence (Mensa, anyone?). I didn't graduate from High School - I couldn't have because of a lack of credits. The only thing I don't match is the total refusal of criticism.
Yes, I contemplated killing people. Who hasn't? But I didn't. Why not? Because I knew that that would only bring me to their level, and I was above that.
The problem is not finding these students. That's just a pathetic excuse to violate our privacy and eliminate trust. What needs to be done is to stop the students that would CREATE these people. We're going to live in a neverending cycle of difficulties and problems so long as bullying and harassment is ENCOURAGED by school officials (don't try and tell me it's not - it very much is. All teasing and bullying is always the victim's fault.) and those students are not only permitted, but urged to continue their absolutely deplorable behaviour.
The people in charge need to shut the hell up for once, and listen to the victims, instead of creating new ones. I don't know about any of you, but if I ever have children, I will be damn good and sure to ensure that they do not have to deal with 'Mosaic2000' in any way shape or form. That's a blatant, outright violation of human rights, privacy, and a perversion of so-called preventative law enforcement.
I'm seriously considering organizing a protest against Mosaic 2000. If you'd like to help out, please, drop me an email at prj@adelphia.net.
--RISCy Business
#1 ENIAC.
;)
:)
I'm sorry, but you'll find absolutely NO larger hack! (And I'm not talking just size here, either.)
#2 Linux
Take one part Minix, one part frustation, add hundreds of thousands of lines of code from all over the place, cobbled together, and you get Linux. Definitely a hack if there ever was.
#3 NetBSD/OpenBSD/FreeBSD
Not to discount the BSDs in comparison to Linux, but they're not as big a hack. They all follow a fixed set of standards, but they've got bits and pieces of code from everywhere!
#4 Sun Microsystems
Yes, I'm nominating a company. Take a few gurus, some people with money, build a machine, capitalize on it's popularity, remove all gurus, and still remain popular through marketing. The ultimate business hack.
#5 Windows 98
Bite me, folks. It's a hack plain and simple. Start with MS-DOS. Put Windows 3.0 on top. Then add Windows 3.1 code. Then add Windows 3.11 code. Then add Windows 95 code, and a few million more lines of code, and you have Windows 98!
#6 The Internet
Vint Cerf doesn't remember the first time they made two computers talk to eachother. It was cobbled together. To this day, it's cobbled together and held together by bailing wire and duct tape. Let's hear it for the world's biggest hack!
#7 godhatesfags.com
The man is the ultimate literary and legal hack. He's been banned from practicing law multiple times. Hacks don't necessarily HAVE to involve computers; computers just help to expose them.
#8 slashdot.org
C'mon, Rob. Don't bother denying it. slashdot is a cobbled together pile of code teetering on the edge of either brilliance or total system meltdown. Embrace it! Be proud of it!
#9 Mandrake Linux
Cheap Hacks'R'Us. Take existing distribution. "Extend" existing distribution. Put in other stuff. Relabel with new flashy logo and name. Sell for same price as competitor. Speaks for itself.
#10 WinModems
We can emulate old PCs on our dual pII-450's, why not emulate hardware, like UARTs and DSPs? Now *THAT* is a hack if I ever did see one!
The opinions above are mine and mine and only mine and thievery of opinions or frags will be met with fierce resistance. Thank you drive through, offer not applicable in all areas, while supplies last, no purchase necessary, call 1-800-NOT-REAL or send SASE to NO SUCH CONTEST, RT 666 BOX 1, COUDERSPORT, PA, 16915, sorry we're all out of Pokemon.
Not necessarily.
Bear in mind, AM signal strength is directly relative to several key things; distance from transmitter, power of transmitter, and frequency.
I'm guessing (I am TOO tired to read the article and make total sense of it right now) that they have already isolated which frequencies effect ADSL. That leaves it to a simple matter of determining a way to filter out the noise from those frequencies at each end. That, unfortunately, is not easy.
However, this surprises me not at all. Cable modems have similar problems. Like Digital Cable. I'm sorry, but two *VERY* busy digital signals over a single coaxial line just will NOT work. Granted, the cablemodem should be operating around 6MHz and your audio/video signals are around 40MHz IIRC, you still run into the problem that those are *baselines*. They go a certain amount either way, with another bit thrown in for tolerance. And end up crowding eachother out. Then at the cable plant, you have things like RF interference from your wireless reception/transmission equipment, and such crap. Things like ingress and dB loss. That's why there's the Cisco uBR7246 (Universal Broadband Router). It's designed with all that stuff in mind, at the cable plant. Once you leave there, you're on your own.
There's really not much that can be done but to compensate. The chances of the FCC ruling ADSL more important than AM radio, which is older than ENIAC by probably a quarter century or more, are very slim. So it's going to be up to the designers and implementers to compensate.
...take it from someone who's discussed it with the guy who actually started it. Linux/390 isn't very special, really. When I last spoke with him (I'm sorry, I've forgotten his name.. I forget names easily. :P) it just ran on the bare hardware, and didn't support much at all. If anything.
Now, some info on the S/390 from someone who's not gotten to play with one, really, but has seen one.
The S/390 is a 'massively parallel' computer. Meaning that everything is parallel. The S/390 is capable of running just about any OS you throw at it, from Linux on an x86 host controller to Windows NT on that same host controller. You can run AIX on an RS/6000 host controller. Or OS/400 on the AS/400 host controller. It's designed to do massive processing while serving up literally thousands of hosts. Usually 'dumb' terminals over twinax (twin-prong coaxial), triax (three-prong coaxial), or RS232/RS242.
No, it's not meant to run Linux instead of OS/390. I wouldn't dare to say that it should, because in truth, it shouldn't. The S/390 is not a 'convenience' machine or a 'play' machine. It is a mainframe, and it needs a mainframe OS.
However, I see absolutely no reason why Linux shouldn't run on the S/390. Bear in mind; running on the S/390 does not mean replacing OS/390. It means SUPPLEMENTING OS/390. Say you have an S/390 handling most of your financial transactions, but accounting wants a website to keep track of it. Running Linux on an x86 host controller on an S/390 is the perfect solution. But say accounting wants to cut some major expenditures out of the budget; eliminating OS/390 isn't a good idea. Plain and simple.
OS/390 is a *VERY* mature OS, pretty much dating back to OS/360 (the similarities between OS/390 and OS/370 are very obvious) and as a direct result, is rock solid stable, extremely secure, and inherently reliable. Add that in to hardware that is designed to have decades of uptime. Add in the power to get the job done and then some. That's what the S/390 is about. It's a big-bucks big-iron machine meant to be your network-edge solution for ERP and transactions and whatever else you want to throw at it. It's not your webserver, it's not your fileserver. It's a mainframe.
However, I've noticed quite a few people are moving away from S/390 to the actually more powerful RS/6000's, which lack some of the features of the S/390. Okay, MOST of the features people look for in the S/390. Some RS/6000 models border on the commodity machine definition. Linux doesn't belong there, either. Yes, that's right, you're hearing it from someone who spends about 99% of his spare time working on porting Linux more thoroughly to the RS/6000. Linux doesn't replace AIX. Period. AIX is a mature OS, probably 7 or 8 years Linux's elder. AIX has a very stable and regular release and development cycle, and is built on principles that have been proven a million times over. It's inherently reliable, stable, and very fast. Unlike Linux, AIX does not just have 'general' releases for all RS/6000's with all architecture support. There is AIX for the RS/6000 F40 (Dual PowerPC 604e) and there is AIX for the RS/6000 Power260 (single POWER3). You can't mix and match those two or components from them. AIX is optimized at the hardware level extensively. Unlike my work, it's built on native platform, optimized on that platform, and meant for that platform.
Yes, every piece of AIX has a common code base. The compilers do the work. That's why it's built on the native platform. You can get AIX C/C++ compilers for PowerPC 604e, POWER2, POWER3, and so on. And they're designed to optimize and compile reliably. ANd they do it well. Better than gcc or egcs could ever hope to.
Linux/390 is a great project. Like I said; there's no reason whatsoever that Linux should NOT be able to run on the S/390. There's no reason Linux should not be able to run on ANY system. The question is, though, do you want to replace what that system is MEANT to run with Linux?
Not yet. Linux is still a long way off from being ready to do that. But maybe someday it will be ready.
-RISCy Business
John;
Next time, get some balls and tell the truth. You've spouted nothing but egocentric bullshit aimed at defaming other sites who expose you for the fraud you are. This 'response' was nothing more than a personal attack against others aimed at increasing your popularity or at least exposure. It is patently libelous and slanderous, making the same false claims you always do.
Get the clue and crawl back in the little hole you came from. You are an absolute disgrace to the security community as a whole, and a scar on the face of this earth.
It's really very simple. They have the source. In China, you can't use a computer without the state approved OS, and someone watching over your shoulder to make sure you don't view anything illegal.
Next step, official browser of Mozilla. If the PRC has the source, they can control every aspect of the software, including what people can do, and have it report to the police if they do something illegal. Anyone caught reading up on the Falun Gong from an unapproved source (ie; anyone who puts the PRC in a bad spot) they'll be arrested, more than likely.
Communism really isn't a bad thing, no. However, China's idea of Communism is not true to the Marxist ideals of communism really, and China is basically little more than a police state. They have no reguard for human rights, what makes you think they're going to use an OS they can't control every aspect of as well?
You know what's desperately needed? An injuction that freezes Microsoft's acquisition fund.
You see, Microsoft just bought a whole bunch of cable companies around DC. Yes, that's right, Microsoft. NOT Charter Communications, but Microsoft proper. And they've been shoving WebTV and cable modems and their new long distance service down everyone's throats.
I don't know about you, but it'll be a cold day in hell before I use M$ long distance. Qwest's leased-line service is absolutely horrific at best currently, and they're supposedly one of the best. BAH. The DOJ needs to clue in and stop Microsoft NOW before they taint everyone. If this is a jury trial (IANAL), Microsoft has just eliminated every possible juror in one fell swoop.
TRUSTe is about as trustworthy as any corporate-owned scumbag lawyer.
TRUSTe does not act in ways that would benefit consumers because that would cost it it's funding. TRUSTe knows this. The EFF knows this. TRUSTe is a dismal failure. Self-regulation in a corporate-driven world is impossible, period. Why?
Because why the hell would you want to give up your biggest source of additional revenue? In today's world, information has a value - especially customer information. If they can send you junkmail till the cows come home that might land them a few extra dollars in business, then you better believe they'll do it. Conversely, they don't want to waste a couple thousand dollars mailing people who don't care either way about their products and will probably just throw it out.
Privacy on the internet? Bah - once you sign up with an untrustworthy ISP, you're already screwed. My ISP back home has very strict policies reguarding privacy. Namely - you get it. They have never sold customer information, they keep minimal customer information, they track no browsing, and send all spammers requesting email lists straight to hell.
A hype-driven company with a couple billion in market cap and no real revenue can't do that. They need money. So they sell out their first customers. So it's just a few at first. But then more and more sign up, and they're getting more and more for customer information. Hey, look, a nice secondary source of revenue. Screw the customer's privacy - we need the operating costs covered.
So, so what if you haven't given a company your personal infromation? You can still be tracked. Cookies. Static IPs. Intel's PSN which really cannot be turned off (independent tests have revealed that the pIII Personal Serial Number can *NOT* be turned off, either by Intel's software or 3rd party software. I recommend NOT buying a pIII.) and is easily obtained and tracked over the web. Gee, Intel's empowering the Internet to watch you and make money off your time. Where's my cut? Oh, wait, I don't get a cut! I'm supposed to just let these people make as much as *$3* *PER* *CUSTOMER* *RECORD* because they're providing me with some service of some sort. Uh. Right.
Of course this is different for every company, yadda yadda, YMMV. But that's how it is, and that's how it's going to stay. The government is driven by interest groups, who's interests lie in making money any way they can generally. It's not in their best interests to protect our privacy. The government doesn't want to protect our privacy - just look at Mosaic[1] - because they don't want "dangerous" people running around. Right. So the government can determine that I'm dangerous because I listen to a lot of industrial and techno.
Privacy was a thing of the past, maybe. Either way, it's a pipe dream. Echelon is real - Iran Contra, Nixon, Jimmy Hoffa, Waco, CIA, NSA, FBI, DOJ! - and privacy simply isn't. And we'll never see real privacy. Why? Because nobody except the end-users want it, and since when have end-users actually gotten what they wanted?
I say we just give up the regulation fight, and start getting hostile. Screw the sites that collect information and resell it. Screw the companies that do the same. Get the laws on our side - violation of privacy is illegal afterall - and take out these scumbags the hard way. That's the only way anything'll ever get done. But rest assured the government will intervene and say that it's perfectly legal, or rush through some legislation that makes it legal... *sigh* nice world we live in, huh? Maybe I should just go back to bed.
[1] Am I the only person on Earth who realizes that Mosaic is a trademark, originally owned by Spry - who was purchased by Compuserve - who was purchased by AOL, and is more than likely still valid? (The trademark was filed in the late 80's or early 90's more than likely, and definitely has been enforced since it's filing.) Of course, this is going off my memory, it's only 10:30, and I didn't get much sleep last night. But my memory generally serves correctly. Somebody wanna pester AOL so we can shaft these 'find the troubled kids' punks?
Didn't think I'd ever see something so patently false and just outright wrong on slashdot, but I guess I've been proven wrong. I think the Anti-Microsoft sentiment's gotten a bit overstrong.
FYI - no. You don't need a license to connect to an M$ webserver (yet). However, if you are using ANY Microsoft service on Windows 2000 in a LAN/WAN environment from a Windows machine, you MUST have a Windows 2000 CAL (Client Access License) for each and every machine that will connect to it.
Microsoft *does* have a valid and clear definition of it's services. These include Windows Filesharing, trusted connections (ie; PDC/BDC-style), application services (ie; common network install of Office2000 (which are part of filesharing)), and any 'networked' MS application, ie; MS SQL. This does NOT include Internet connections to IIS in any form.
Yes, that does mean that Samba is now illegal according to Microsoft licensing. But that's it. You don't need a CAL for every person who connects to your website. Just the 95/98/NT/2k users in your domain.
However, this presents a pretty stealthy move by Microsoft. Basically, this licensing scheme says that you need to have a Windows 2000 license for a Samba box. I don't want Win2k - that's why I have a Samba box. But if I want to connect to a Win2k box with my Samba box, I need a license. Bah. Stealthy little bastards, those legal folks at Microsoft. Ah well - they can take me to court for it for all I care; not like I'm going to be using Win2k as a server *ever*.
Of course, standard disclaimer applies, including IANAL. Doesn't change my views, and nothing will. So nyah.
-RISCy Business | Rabid unix guy, networking guru
I've got what's probably a fairly odd question here;
:)
how does the royal family handle connectivity? Granted, they have a leased line for those webservers, to an upstream provider. But is it multi-homed? Is it redundant? Are they using Linux as a routing table broadcaster?
Just my curiosity at it again
-RISCy Business | Rabid unix guy, networking guru
You know, I have to wonder, when will you people realize that it's a pipedream?
If this system is to be ready by 2001, and is to be faster than ASCI Red (9,282 Intel Pentium Pro 200MHz with 1024k cache each, using proprietary interconnects (IP over SCSI, IIRC)) then it's not going to happen.
Even if the gov't is willing to sacrifice the reliability of the system, Linux is not ready and will not be for many years. Period. You're talking of going from 2 processors, which only works on x86 and Alpha currently, to over a thousand.
Sorry, folks, it isn't going to happen. It's a matter of rapid development, and availability. Sure, SGI could probably do it, but not by due date. Nor would it perform as necessary due to the requirement of extensive assembly-level optimization in both compilers and kernels.
ASCI Blue Pacific, IBM's entry, is one of the most powerful computers in the world. And what I'm about to say will probably send most of you into denial and/or shock.
Blue Pacific isn't customized all that much. In fact, barely customized. It's nearly the same machine you can order for your business today. Perhaps even slightly slower.
That's right - ASCI Blue Pacific CTR SP Silver and ASCI Blue Pacific, #11 and #2 respectively on the Top 500 list, are retail systems with some additional software. IBM's SP Silver in Poughkeepsie is a retail SP.
Shocking, isn't it? That someone can build a supercomputer that any business can buy. IBM holds a *lot* of the first 50. You don't see Sun till 54 with a machine that was totally custom built. Hell, look at #20! IBM SP Power3 200MHz. *200MHz!* And it smokes 480 supercomputers! That should tell you something right there. Now, SGI's talking about, more than likely, an x86 supercomputer or IA64 supercomputer, that's supposed to run Linux, have more than a thousand processors, and outperform ASCI Red? Nope, 'fraid not, folks. Maybe in 5 or 6 years, but not one and a half. Sorry. Deal with it.
-RISCy Business | Rabid unix guy, networking guru
You know, a lot of people - especially slashdotters, like to flame me when I make a prediction, like Corel's gonna make a big screwup, or NetSol's gonna do something, or what have you.
Once again, I've been proven right though. Can't contest it. I said a few months back when this was originally announced that Corel's gonna have licensing issues, especially with Debian. Corel doesn't understand the DFSG (Debian Free Software Guidelines) and doesn't care so much about them.
This immediately puts Corel into conflict with a good many packages in Debian, pretty much. Told you so. *smirk*
What bothers me, however, is that while I'm not some GPL hardliner, or DFSG hardliner even - the author is compromising his license.
There's one license I won't tolerate - and that's a compromised one. The author owns the software, and how he chooses to license it is his decision. No author should be forced to bow to anyone because they cannot create a derivitive work with a compatible license. This is Corel's problem, and they should be working to rectify it properly - by writing software that can be licensed compatibly, not by basically forcing the author into compromising his license.
Look at it this way; should I put a new stereo in my car, just because big corporation XYZ says so? That's how I'm looking at this - you may view it differently, but IMNSHO, that's not how it is. Here, a maintainer is basically being told to compromise on his license because a corporation says so. I don't believe for a second that this is right. Even for the good of the distribution as a whole, it simply is not right.
If Corel's going to consider DFSG a hinderance that the maintainers and authors have to work around, then I think that Corel had best get off it's butt, find a new distribution that doesn't care about author's rights and the DFSG, and start from scratch. This is nothing short of bullying, almost Microsoft-style, to make sure they get their way so they can turn a profit.
Yes, it's going to increase Debian's user base - assuming Corel isn't found guilty in the Canadian's SEC-thing investigation - but it's now doing it at the cost of author's rights and freedoms. They've already had one licensing blunder - this makes two - how many more will there be? Eleven? Thirty? Fifty? For all we know, the entire distribution could end up being totally incompatible with the GPL or DFSG. Maybe Corel will change their license, or maybe they won't. Time will tell on that.
But at this point, it's my belief that the entirety of Corel's base - which is Debian - has now been compromised, as well as Debian as a distribution alone. Sure, Corel can throw in fancy things like WordPerfect 2000 and Corel DRAW! and other neat applications that would fall under 'non-free' at best. But they're doing it at an incredible cost. I really have a hard time accepting the compromise of a license as 'reasonable' in any situation whatsoever. If the author wants to license their software in a specific way, then that is their right to do so. They licensed it how they wanted it, they can change the license, but never should they be forced to change the license.
We already know Qt/Qtlib/KDE is non-DFSG compliant. Corel said 'we don't care.' Corel blatantly ignored the restrictions of the GPL and other licenses when they released the beta. Now they're basically forcing authors to change their licenses so they can attempt to save their finances.
Maybe Corel should have just gotten RedHat. At this rate, their ethics and intelligence are about the same level. Maybe even as bad as Microsoft, who frequently bullies programmers who use their products. It's trendy to hate Microsoft, though, so I'm sure this will get moderated down as 'flamebait' or 'troll' by the people who have never actually authored anything.
Ah well. Some days, it's just not worth getting out of bed, I guess. Much less out of bed to program. Maybe I should put a clause in my programs that says they can't be used by Corel for profit. See how they handle that one. *sigh* Yet another day of SNAFU. Situation Normal, All Fucked Up. Maybe someday we'll see some honest and decent corporations, but I guess it's going to have to wait for now - the almighty dollar calls again.
-RISCy Business | Rabid unix guy, networking guru
This isn't about conformance, it isn't about violating rights.
This is about broad and typically incorrect assumptions based on profiling and other frequently debatable psychological "learnings."
To put it bluntly, I wouldn't have tolerated that kind of crap when I was in school. How *dare* some unnamed person not only decieve me, but attempt to label me and place me in a group based on a standardized test that's results are based on broad assumption? How dare they?!
To put it into perspective; I'd be labeled as a violent person. Immediately. Red flags everywhere. But that's because of my personal beliefs, principles, and concepts. Truthfully, I'm a rather peacable person. I think I've actually hit someone once or maybe twice.
Yeah, my thoughts are violent. Comes from a society that not only glorifies, but exemplifies violence as a way to solve problems, to insure peace. While they condemn it. Can we say 'double-standard' boys and girls? I wasn't shocked about Columbine, really. I'd wanted to do something similar many times. Difference is, I didn't act on it.
I have something called self control. Yeah, I'm a violent person if you look at some bullshit psychological profile, I suppose. Doesn't mean I act on my thoughts. I think the most violent thing I've ever done has been to tear up my bedroom. Didn't break anything - just made it into a huge mess.
What bothers me even more is how they will implement this crap. It'll be mandatory. Parents won't be given the option to not do it. Nor will the children. You do it or you get the boot. And if you're labeled as 'violent' you'll be labeled for life. You'll have a police record before you even commit a crime.
Prevention through extremest and intrusive vigilence is just wrong. Just like fighting a war to end a war is wrong. Just because you win a war doesn't mean you can force people to stop hating eachother. What gives anyone the right to force someone to answer a bunch of idiotic questions that could quite possibly ruin the rest of their life?
Somebody point me to a campaign to stop this shit. I'm sick of this 'protect the children' excuse crap. What happened to 'securing life, liberty, and justice for all'? Oh, that's right, the DOJ burned the last copy of that filtered document years ago. My bad. We now return you to your normal police state. (Gee, I wonder how long before somebody comes knocking on my door looking to arrest me for speaking my mind..)
-RISCy Business | Rabid unix guy, networking guru
I just moved to PA. Coudersport, PA, to be exact. It may be BFE, but if it wasn't for Hell Atlantic, Coudersport would have more DS3s per square mile than Cleveland and Buffalo combined. (Maybe it being the home of Adelphia Communications Corporate has something to do with that? :)
:)
Anyways, Pennsylvania's done something much *much* better than MA. We got new license plates this year. They're blue white and yellow, very tasteful IMO. And at the bottom (in PA, you don't have a county sticker/stamp) is a good one liner.
www.state.pa.us
HA! Touche, MA. God I love living in a state that has a sense of decency and taste.
-RISCy Business | Rabid unix guy, networking guru
This isn't surprising behaviour from ESR.
;)
I looked at it from a purely academic standpoint. Very strong solid arguments, that added a lot to the paper.
I looked at it from a personal standpoint, and saw the same thing.
I looked at it from ESR's standpoint and saw a challenge to my 'undeniable knowledge' about open source, and my media supremacy as ESR.
To put it bluntly, ESR is very egotistical and overly optimistic, assuming that if he says it, it will not only happen, but become law. This simply isn't true. I have analyzed much of what ESR has said throughout his 'reign' and have found most of it to be obviously written by an egotistical, overly boastful, angry zealot. Maybe ESR's just angry because RMS has held the spotlight for so long, and he wants a piece of the pie. Maybe it's because somebody wrote a critique that he views as a personal insult.
Either way, this is equivalent to a child's comeback. I say "you suck," ESR says "yeah, well you suck more!" We know for certain that at least one side is mature enough, hopefully, to simply say "whatever" and walk away before it becomes some ugly debacle.
ESR and Bruce Perens didn't get along with eachother for a reason. I'll save them both the embarassment of bringing those details back out into the light again, and leave it at that ESR is totally uncompromising unless it's going to further him personally, from what I have seen and heard.
People can flame me all they want, but the fact of the matter stands that ESR would probably slap the 'Open Source Certified' sticker on any product who's maker paid him off personally, under the table. He's the equivalent of a televangelist in my eyes; "can I get a hallelujiah!?" 'HALLELUJIAH!' "Can I get your credit card number?!" '4129...'
ESR makes strong points, but only politically. I've yet to see a 100% objective and reasonable writing from ESR. He has a habit of dodging the tough questions, of dodging things that could get him in trouble, of running away when he's scared of something small. In all the years I've known the brash, opinionated, certainly egotistical, and sometimes downright insane RMS, he has maintained a fair level of professionalism. ESR's level of professionalism varies wildly from paper to paper, word to word. At times he reminds me of a coworker at a former job who was recently fired for gross unprofessionalism. When it suited him, he'd be the penultimate professional idiot; always had an answer, and always said sir. But when it didn't, he'd curse up a storm, get personal, and get impolite and downright unpleasant.
I never chose ESR to represent me, or my views, or the Linux community. Who did? I don't recall anyone of any real import beyond business people with 'open source' software actually endorsing him, but I honestly haven't paid any attention. The fact of the matter remains; I'd rather ESR didn't attempt to mis-represent any community I consider myself a part of, but he's going to keep right on doing it, so long as people hail him as their saviour.
Don't get me wrong; I'd rather not have RMS representing me professionally either. RMS is a hardliner who actually gives a damn about his morals and won't compromise his views, except to extremes. (I'm sorry, but if I *ever* have to listen to 'Join us now and share the software' again I'm gonig to have to rip off RMS' lips.
ESR's behaviour, conduct, and words have turned the term 'open source' from a very meaningful term into a pair of words that just means you let people see the undocumented features and ESR slaps his personal seal of approval on it.
Means nothing to me. Honestly, I'm fairly indifferent about GPL vs LGPL vs 'Open Source' vs Commercial. I concern myself only with whether or not it gets the job done first, then I consider the possibilities later. As anyone in any IT field with half a clue would. Functionality should always come before whether or not it's "free" software by anyone's definition.
In closing, all I can say is that I'm wholly and totally displeased with the conduct and quality of work ESR has done. All he has done has create meaningless terms, poor relationships, and damaged the credibility of an entire community at times, in my opinion. Maybe he should take a hint, and start acting a great deal more professionally and less 'geeky.'
/* This is my opinion, these are my words. I'd say 'em again in a heartbeat. And quite frankly, I don't give a damn if it ticks you off. It's an opinion, and they're like assholes - everyone's got one. So deal. */
-RISCy Business | Rabid unix guy, networking guru
January 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 2000
:)
- Rioting in isolated locations and major cities due to excessively large parties, people sick of Prince's "1999," drunk partygoers, and isolated power outages.
- Many computers die. Tech support lines and phone switches are pushed to capacity and beyond as frantic customers call their computer manufacturers demanding assistance.
January 4th, 2000
- All power is restored in all areas, riots are calmed, things are back to normal except for busy clean up crews.
- Phone switches still straining to handle load from customers who didn't get through in the first three days.
January 23rd, 2000
- Phones work well again, all customers blown off, or helped. BBB flooded with complaints about companies that blew off out of warranty customers.
Sometime in 2001
- Space station suffers setbacks. Gets put off further.
Sometime in 2005
- First totally software-driven AI passes turing test with flying colors.
Sometime in 2009
- First totally hardware-driven AI passes turing test with flying colors; research and construction of experimental androids begins at colleges and universities around the world.
Sometime in 2010
- Scientists announce first successful human clone. UN immediately bans commercial cloning and regulates cloning for research excessively.
- Space station delayed even further.
- Third world countries getting restless because they're not getting a piece of the technology pie.
Sometime in 2011
- The great Internet Collapse will occur; the end-user/client-side/CPE equipment's bandwidth capabilities far outweighing those of many routers and backbones, the Internet is overloaded to the point of a colossal cascading failure, taking many backbones down for several days. Service is restored, with some difficulty, but things are much slower and much less reliable. IPv6 is determined to be insuffecient, and IPv7 work begins by the IETF.
Sometime in 2015
- Int'l Space Station *finally* finished, several trillion dollars over budget.
- "Great Quake" of the San Andreas fault occurs, measuring =>7.0 on the richter scale. Many buildings, including 'earthquake proof' buildings fail structurally. Thousands are killed in the falling rubble and trapped inside the buildings. Highways are destroyed, and many parts of California are isolated by the damage. Building codes are made stricter to keep public opinion of officials from dropping.
- Many earthquakes shake the 'ring of fire' in the pacific, killing thousands and causing hundreds of billions of dollars in damages. Computer industry, still reliant on Taiwan, is hit hard. Prices skyrocket.
Sometime in 2016
- Third world countries have had it, minor wars and skirmishes break out. The UN tries to abolish envy.
Sometime in 2020
- William H. Gates III passes away, leaves vast majority of wealth to charities. Children sue for being 'cheated' out of the wealth.
Sometime in 2025
- Intelligent androids are perfected and enter active use, working dangerous jobs only at first, far outperforming their previous human workers.
Sometime in 2026
- Laws are passed giving intelligent androids rights of their own, including the right to safer working conditions as safety has deteriorated due to the 'disposable' nature of androids.
Sometime in 2040
- No home on earth is without a computer; the Internet is the only means of communication, traditional phone switches having been replaced by real-time computers handling SS8 switching protocols. The US now has over 800 unique area codes. The phone companies warn congress that they will have to expand area codes to 4 digits within 2 years.
Sometime in 2041
- Yet another US stock market crash. But surprisingly, it changes little, only serving to reduce android use due to their still excessive cost, causing the economy to rebound before the end of the year.
Sometime in 2050
- US declares itself in charge of the world, proxy-ruling with the UN. World War III breaks out, hundreds of computers set to trying to figure out how to win the war with as little bloodshed as possible. Interestingly, cracking of enemy computers is not tried.
Sometime in 2052
- Nuclear weapons are brought out of storage, manufacture quickly escalates, all parties assuming that a buildup a la the Cold War will deter everyone from attacking them.
Sometime in 2057
- An accident at a nuclear weapons manufacturing plant and storage facility somewhere in the world sets off a chain reaction, destroying 20 nuclear warheads, killing hundreds immediately, and causing a massive fallout cloud that kills hundreds of others.
- The facility claims sabotage by another country. Tensions heat up incredibly rapidly, and all negotiations and treaties begin to break down.
Sometime in 2058
- A trigger-happy world suffers another nuclear accident, a much smaller one that only destroys and irradiates a single small town. US issues a ban on all nuclear warheads via UN, but it is ignored by other countries, which have withdrawn their UN delegates.
Sometime in 2059
- Tensions are too high for safety; every home has a bomb shelter, and there are massive community bombshelters. Air raid sirens are posted on every street corner. Attempting to crack the enemy's systems cannot be tried, as the Internet has been dismantled, turning into massive WANs within allied countries.
Sometime in 2060
- A country somewhere in the world testfires a new fusion weapon that has power equivalent to 1,000,000 of the most powerful Hydrogen bombs. The UN issues a declaration banning further research and development on said weapon, for the safety of the world, and that all prototypes and research must be destroyed. The declaration is ignored.
Sometime in 2061
- The end of the world. The fusion weapon developed in 2060 is fired on a country. A hunter-killer missile is unable to stop it, and the entire country is wiped out. Nuclear and fusion weapons suddenly fire around the world, hitting their targets, and setting into motion a chain reaction that destroys nearly half the continents and cuases extreme devastation to anything not destroyed. Only a few people are left living, but the world is unlivable due to the nuclear winter.
Around 2090
- Human race dies. World still too radioactive for living. Cockroaches still rule the world, but they aren't the giant mutated beasts as advertized in movies.
About 4 billion years later.
- Evolution produces another sentient and intelligent race. Race progresses very much like humanity did.
About 6 billion years after that.
- Sun burns out. Everything dies. Game over, man. Game over.
Take these predictions with a grain of salt, maybe. Who knows, I could be true! All I know is I sure as hell won't live to see most of 'em.
-RISCy Business | Rabid unix guy, networking guru
...is an Ultra5 worth it. I'm writing this on an Ultra5. Probably one of the $2,000 ones. It's got a 4.3G IDE disk and a 12x IDE CD-ROM. It has a 10/100 'Happy Meal' ethernet card. Onboard sound that is horrendous. No SCSI capabilities without a very specific SCSI card. One serial port that requires a special splitter cable.
With 256M of memory, this Ultra5 is actually *slower* than my IBM ThinkPad 860 running AIX with a 603/166MHz and 64M in it. That's right; it's actually slower. It's running a cheapo Raptor 4M 'framebuffer' which is actually a Permedia2a, specifically, a FireGL 1000 Pro OEM'd twice; once by Diamond, once by this other company.
I can honestly say I have a framerate using Netscape. I have a framerate when I'm typing because the keyboard controller is having difficulties keeping up with my typing (I type at ~110WPM w/78% accuracy) and the movements of my mouse. And this is with 256M, which probably puts it up to the $5,000 mark if you want your memory from Sun.
Honestly, I can't say I've been on a much worse machine. Even my PCs are better than this; at least they have the ability to use a variety of SCSI cards and sound cards; here, you're stuck with one choice and no options. The CD-ROM is problematic, as is the OS. Half the time it refuses to take an audio CD, much less play it.
Don't waste your money. I can honestly say that the DEC Multia is on par with the Ultra5 as far as a development machine; and I own 3 DEC Multias. They have the same problems - no room for disk, proprietary floppy, etc. The difference is that the Multia comes with video onboard, and has IDE and SCSI in it, as well as a decent sound card, NIC, PCMCIA, and you can add expansion capabilities. The Ultra5.. well.. I think I need another Motorola MTX+ '011 before I so much as want an Ultra5. If you must have SPARC, go get a SPARCengine UltraAXi from one of the many VAR/OEMs that Sun rips off royally. Same machine, only you can actually try and work with it.
-RISCy Business | Rabid unix guy, networking guru
You know, I'd almost support an anti-cracking program by the government except for one thing.
They're going to misinform those kids.
"Okay, Johnny. Now what's wrong with hacking?" "It hurts other people's work and it's illegal." "Very good. Now what is hacking?" "When you try to break into someone's computer or you try to take apart their program."
Anti-cracking my ass; we all know that the government will use it as not only that, but as a way to push other 'morals' on these poor kids. Morals like 'reverse engineering is wrong' and 'taking apart somebody else's work to make it work better is illegal.' Not to mention ruining the definition of hacker vs cracker.
We all know that the government is about as computer-saavy as, say, Martha Stewart. Like hell I'm going to trust them to 'educate' any kids I know about 'hacking'. My suggestion to parents is to simply call your kids in sick when they send the NSA/DOJ puppets around, because you're going to have to reeducate your kids right afterwards. And I'll bet dollars to doughnuts that they plan to run it like 'DARE' out here where you have to go through it in every grade, and in at least two grades, you're forcefed the crap for a full week and then tested on it.
*sigh* Sometimes the government gets so close, but falls so damn far. Where's the receipt for our current government? I wanna take it back and get one that works in exchange.
-RISCy Business | Rabid unix guy, networking guru
ALRIGHT YOU IGNORANT LITTLE FSCKING WEASELS. In case you haven't fucking noticed, *ALL* of Linux is a fucking media circus. Even DEBIAN now. THAT is what I am referring to when I say Pfah. RedHat. It's sad to see what Linux has become. GODS! Somebody fucking hand the world a clue before I have to shove it down the idiot's throats one at a fucking time.
-RISCy Business | Rabid unix guy, networking guru
You know, this strikes me as real Microsoft-like behaviour on RedHat's part. Let's take a look here.
Win95 was released late in 95. Q1 96 gave us OSR2, which was just a bunch of bugfixes hidden behind 'added features.' RedHat released 6.0 early in 99, if memory serves correctly. And here it is, 2 quarters later, with a new version.
Welcome to how RedHat plans to make it's money, folks. Microsoft didn't really make any money on OSR2 because it was just Win95. But then came 98. And then 98SE, which was $90 if you had 98.
Welcome to RedHat 6.0. Here comes RedHat 6.1. Want a manual? That'll be another $80. RedHat isn't counting on downloaders for their profits; you're all probably off their radar and filed away in the trash bin. They don't want you; they want businesses that shell out the $80 for every new release. Nevermind the fact that the only updates are to GPL or such software, and the commercial stuff that comes along 'free' is still the same version. They need those manuals and those little updates. So out comes the check book.
RedHat's always rushed to release. Need I remind you RedHat supporters of 3.0.0, the biggest disaster of a distro *ever*? RedHat doesn't care about beta testing at this point - if it's broken, release a new version. They have 'credentials' and a solid brand now; the businesses will pay.
Really nice guys, those RedHat people, huh? If they can't ripoff the end users, they'll get the businesses instead. I think maybe I'll just switch back to an all-AIX environment. At least AIX doesn't come out with bugfixes daily then say 'oh, screw you. Here's a new version you have to buy.' They can sit on a version, release bugfixes, and integrate them into the next version, a year or two down the road.
Pfah. RedHat. It's sad to see what Linux has become.
-RISCy Business | Rabid unix guy, networking guru
HA! I was WONDERING why things were slow to my ISP today! Those OC192's are probably the ones that Columbia Gas has pipelines running alongside, on I80. (Ha! You thought I wouldn't name the gas company!) IIRC, ICG laid the first OC48, and MCI/MFS as well as Sprint laid more, and more, and more. They're doing a LOT of construction along I80 from what I hear, so it's NOT surprising that a cut occured. Those lines are on a gas-pipeline right-of-way, and there are 5ESS Demarcation points along I80 for 'em.
:)
There've been previous fiber cuts that resulted in me passing a group of 15 MCI/WorldCom vans on my way home. I betcha if it's the link I suspect, they've got the onramp *packed* with all their techs trying to explain to the people staffing the tollbooths that they're with (insert-company) and they're in on an emergency call and they'll be getting right back off! *LAUGH!* Gotta love the Ohio Turnpickle, eh?
-RISCy Business | Rabid unix guy, networking guru
It's refreshing to see some truth in reporting.
I can only applaud Adam Penenburg because words have failed me. For once someone has had the guts, in a big media publication, to tell the truth about "JP"; he's not what he claims, he's a poser, a fake, and an unreliable source. He is shunned by the real 'hacking'/'cracking' (whichever you prefer) communities. Attrition.org has documents which, at length, detail his many falsifications, lies, abuses, and other attacks. Proof of his paying people to fabricate his 'scoops.' Proof of his gross abuses of venture capital and other funding. I'm certain something he's doing is illegal, it's only a question of when somebody can afford a lawyer and the time to take him on in court before he is exposed for the fraud that he is.
I truly hope John reads this. I hope he threatens lawsuits and the whole deal. Because then he'll have given slashdot a scoop of their own, and just be exposing himself for the vindictive little child that he is.
-RISCy Business | Rabid unix guy, networking guru